Croatian Me Crazy

Sladoled!

Like Venice, we had heard that Dubrovnik is not exactly toddler friendly (note that this is different than kid friendly! There are a lot of things a 7 year old will enjoy that just don't work for a 1 and 3 year old but somehow everyone lumps kids together into one big bucket...). But we were pleasantly surprised by Venice, so we figured maybe Dubrovnik will be the same!

Beautiful water! So clear, so blue! (so cold)

We arrived at our hotel, Hotel Mlini, early in the morning (having taken a 4:45AM boat transfer back to Venice airport for a 6:00AM flight). We used Sun Transfers van with 2 car seats to get form the airport to the hotel, and that worked nicely.

Even though check-in wasn't until late afternoon, Hotel Mlini checked us right in and fed us breakfast, which was very nice! The staff there were great - super nice to the kids. Unfortunately, they were experiencing cooler-than-average weather for August with some strong trade winds. The net-net was that the pools and ocean were really too cold to enjoy much and we were heavily banking on those to be a major feature of this trip. The "heated" indoor pool was the same temperature as the ocean so not much help for us wimpy Californians who are used to vacationing in the Caribbean. The kids still went in; A managed to enjoy despite the cold for 30 min or so but Z cried when we put him in even though he loves his swim class so we didn't keep him in there for long.

View from our room at Hotel Mlini

Chilling (literally) at the indoor pool. There was an outdoor one as well.

Mlini isn't too far from Dubrovnik but not close either. It's quite aways by bus or you can take the water ferry which takes about 40-45 minutes. We opted to instead take a private tour to get a view of the panorama and a guided tour of the city. This worked out great! Our guide, Marijana, was friendly with the kids and full of knowledge. She tailored her tales to include our 3 year old's imagination (princesses and dragons were involved!) and meanwhile imparted some interesting facts to us about the old city. They managed to get a booster and car seat so the kids were relatively safe.

Infamous shot of the castle fort

Drinking from Onofrio's fountain in Dubrovnik

Tiny alleys in the walled portion of the city

Main street

SHAME! (for your GOT fans, you'll get that reference)

Up at the panorama with the city in the background

Because it was a bit of a schlep to get into Dubrovnik (you can take the water ferry, which takes around 45 minutes), we generally just stuck to our little area. There was a walking trail from our resort down to the Sheraton nearby (about a mile away), which is also where the grocery store was. On this trial, was a string of pebbly beaches (typical for Croatia), a water park (good for older kids, I'd imagine), and a very nice wooded area with lots of little playgrounds. If you kept going beyond the Sheraton, there's an abandoned area where old hotels stand that were damaged in the war and never completely abolished. I ran over there in the morning and you could go to the beach but probably not a place to hang out. Because the pool time was a bit less easy than we intended, we ended up walking that trail a lot to keep the littles busy. To and fro to get ice cream (sladoled!).

Playing in the Croatian park

Croatian beach in Mlini area

Net-net, Croatia was harder for us to keep the kids busy. I'm sure there's a ton to do if you can go in the ocean or are staying in Dubrovnik itself but without those options, we spend a lot of time just wandering. Which is nice because it's beautiful but the kids do start getting a bit hard to handle without other activities. So probably a location I'd personally reserve until they're older or just got to Dubrovnik for a couple days and visit the other areas of the Croatia instead of settling on one.

Last vacation sunset in Croatia - did not disappoint!

On another note, we were very sad to hear about the terror attacks in Las Ramblas. It really is terrifying because we were on that part of Las Ramblas several times daily while we were there not too long ago. It is terribly sad for the families of those who were hurt and killed.

I hope we have more adventures to share soon in the near future.