Tours in Review

Croatia and Slovenia with Vantage Deluxe World Travel

We highly recommend “Croatia and Other Hidden Treasures of the Adriatic” with Vantage Deluxe World Travel (90 Canal St., Boston, MA 02114-2031; phone 800/322-6677 or visit www.vantagetravel.com).

Our 15-day tour, April 20-May 4, ’05, cost $6,470 for the two of us, including air from Boston and optional travel insurance. Breakfast was included daily along with several lunches and nine dinners. Two optional day tours cost $128.

We flew on Lufthansa from Miami to Frankfurt, connecting with Adria Airways to Ljubljana, Slovenia. Seating on Lufthansa was tight, but the flight attendants were friendly and food service was satisfactory.

We spent three nights at Lake Bled, SLOVENIA, at the Grand Hotel Toplice, with lake, mountains, castle and church views. We had a wonderful meal at Vila Preseren, located on the Lake Bled walking path just below the Catholic church. Dinner with salad and entrée and a bottle of local wine cost us $57 including VAT and tip.

We moved on to Opatija, CROATIA, for three nights at the centrally located Hotel Millennium.

In Sibenik we stayed at Hotel Ivan, part of the Solaris Holiday Resort. Vantage advised that it was “not to our standards” but was “the best in the area.” Fortunately, our stay was only two nights.

Our 3-night stay in Dubrovnik was at the Excelsior Hotel.

To avoid the long drive to Zagreb, we flew Croatia Air, arriving late evening at the Sheraton Zagreb for our final two nights.

We had a little rain in Zagreb, but for most of our trip the weather was warm and sunny. With the exception of Hotel Ivan, all properties were deluxe.

The program manager for this tour was Masha Lugonja. We would have to rate her outstanding, and our congenial tour members were equally impressed with her.

Masha ran an on-time, 40-person tour and always went the extra mile. An example was on our last day when we stopped for dinner on our way to the Dubrovnik airport. When close to 40 people descend on a restaurant with one waitress and one cook, things slow down. Masha came to the rescue, delivering pizza, calculating the bills and collecting the money. We arrived at the Zagreb airport for our flight with time to spare.

We highly recommend Vantage and this tour and only hope you are lucky enough to have Masha as your tour manager.

— JOE & IONE GOLDEN, Ormond Beach, FL

From the December 2005 issue.

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