Croatia Holiday Money

[eightseventhree]

Hello!

My partner and i are going to Croatia for the first time and staying on a boat for a week floating around Hvar, Brac, Vis etc.

Neither of us have been to this part of the world before and have no idea about costs of food, drink etc. Has anyone got any recent information on costs so we can work on how much cash we need to budget for. We will be eating out a fair bit some mid range and maybe one or two meals at somewhere nice?

thanks

[The Leaper]

4 of us went to Craotia in May for a week. We stayed at Porec, Istria.

I have kept a good record of all the holiday costs. We went 50/50 on all drinks, food, bars, restaurants etc and my share worked out to be just under £650 for the week for the wife and I. I'd say all food and drinks prices were reasonable although it would be possible to find seriously good restaurants which have higher prices (we did this twice).

R.

[Jaguar steve]

Assume the boat is all inclusive so you'll be constrained by whatever restaurants you can find in the ports you visit.

Rough 2013 Trogir prices - steak meal 130kn, Pizza 60-90kn, 0.5l beer 30kn, bottle of almost pleasant wine 100kn upwards, fish platter for two 250kn.

The only island restaurants we've visited were on Sv. Klement in the Pakleni islands and a harbourside pizza joint in Vis, both cost maybe 20% than you'd expect on the mainland. Supermarkets on the islands had a captive market and charged accordingly.

[eightseventhree]

Thanks for the info.

The boat is not all inclusive (not holiday company) so will be cooking onboard / eating in ports.

Looking at the prices the food is very much UK prices in the habour areas.

[hidetheelephants]

eightseventhree said:

Thanks for the info.

The boat is not all inclusive (not holiday company) so will be cooking onboard / eating in ports.

Looking at the prices the food is very much UK prices in the habour areas.

True, but you often don't have to walk far to get cheaper, and some seafood is silly cheap.

[Jaguar steve]

hidetheelephants said:

eightseventhree said:

Thanks for the info.

The boat is not all inclusive (not holiday company) so will be cooking onboard / eating in ports.

Looking at the prices the food is very much UK prices in the habour areas.

True, but you often don't have to walk far to get cheaper, and some seafood is silly cheap.

We found shopping for a self catering boat was difficult. Some of the Croatian marinas and ports on the islands we visited are the ones you mentioned and we only found small supermarkets selling basics at inflated prices.

Meat - especially red meat - served as a restaurant meal is much better quality than you'll get in a supermarket or butchers. Pizza, fish, seafood and veg and fruit is good from local markets but you'll frequently find there's very limited quantities as the stallholders catch or grow whatever they have themselves rather than buy produce in.

You'll struggle to find good quality wine too - some Croatian wine is OK, most of it is poor and some of it is really undrinkable. Karlovaco (sp?) beer is nice, the other Croatian brands I tried are fizzy and flavourless.

I've not seen a reasonably sized supermarket anywhere along the central Croatian coast, all the ones we found both on the mainland around the Trogir/Split area and out on the central islands are pretty much the size of a local Tesco Express and are piled high with packets, tinned, frozen and dried food as well as tons of stuff like kids toys, lightbulbs, gardening tools, paint, ice creams and stuff you won't need on a boat.

You'll get by because you have no choice, but certainly don't expect a warehouse sized Auchan, Mercedonia or Carrefour packed with really superb quality food like you'd find in any French or Spanish town.

The Croatians think their food is OK - and to be fair it is pretty good in most restaurants and maybe it is in shops too now compared with what they are used to. But it's nowhere near as as good for quality or choice as an average UK supermarket and a million miles behind anything you'd find in the rest of Europe.

[hidetheelephants]

I'd agree with that; we provisioned in Biograd south of Zadar; it has a smallish Lidl and slightly larger Plodine, fine for staples and basic fresh stuff but nothing special. Also agree about Karlovacko!

[Jaguar steve]

One other thing to bear in mind too - on yacht base changeover days or whenever a flotilla is in port any shop near the harbour or marina will be picked clean of the basics with hardly anything left on the shelves by late afternoon.

Larger bottles of water and slabs of beer especially are like gold dust.

[The Leaper]

Regarding wine, when we were in Croatia in May we stuck to Malvasia wine. It seemed to be available everywhere in Istria. It was about €15 a bottle in restaurants and was quite acceptable. The whites are better than the reds, I think.

R.