Hotel Croatia Cavtat — Hotel in Općina Konavle

Based on my experience 5⭐ Croatia = 4 ⭐ Ireland and UK.

The hotel is vast, it's public spaces spacious and comfortable, it has two well designed saltwater pools, one indoor and an adjacent one outdoor. Don't expect to get sunbeds around the outdoor one unless you're likely to rise at 8 ( or before) and place towels on your favourite bed. This is discouraged by signs on the walls, but completely ignored by both guests and staff alike. It's a difficult one to police.

The breakfast buffet is one of the finest feeding operations I have ever witnessed in an hotel, and massive kudos to the wonderful staff there who provide a really professional service under what I am sure are difficult situations at times. This restaurant named 'Cavtat Buffet Restaurant' is used for the half board dinner service, but I can't comment as I didn't go half board. However you can purchase a one off seating for an all you can eat buffet for €30. It is a gargantuan restaurant with both indoor and outdoor seating.

Our bedroom on floor 8 was very nice and overlooked the cute port town of Cavtat. The room has everything you will need for a comfortable stay and the balcony with its two seats and table was great.

The pool side cafe/bar named 'Alverde' has a simple lunch offering that is tasty. Prices same as Ireland - unfortunately. This was the only place in the hotel where we found male staff to be surly and rude.

The separate restaurant named 'Spinaker' based at the bottom of the hotel steps (129 of them) is worth it for the seating arrangements where pre booked tables by hotel guests will be right on the water front, I mean one foot away. Unfortunately the food here is hit and miss and I had one of the nicest mussel dishes there followed by the worst swordfish steak that I ever encountered. Staff here, also very attentive.

The piano bar is great for cocktails and again prices same as Ireland. Hotel views are 5⭐ particularly those at the rear of the hotel and can be enjoyed from a series of hard terraces where deck chairs and umbrellas ( most of which could do with maintenance/replacing now) are complimentary for residents. Pool towels are also provided free of charge but be aware that on busy days, they run out, so get your towels early in the morning and hang on to them.

The walk to Cavtat town is less than 10 minutes, but be aware that 129 steps down (and then back up,) from the hotel must be negotiated first. The hotel provides a golf cart delivery service, for 6 people at a time. It takes them from the hotel door to the bottom of the hill. From there it's a 5 minute walk to the start of the Cavtat promenade. Don't forget to tip the lovely buggy drivers, a euro or two per trip would be nice.

Room servicing was good, but the turndown service involves a knock on the door and two chocolates being handed over. That didn't annoy us but some residents might expect more than that.

We did not eat at the steak restaurant, named 'Steakhouse', located in the basement as it did not look inviting - dark and gloomy, and very unlike any of the other public spaces in the hotel.

Reception staff always very helpful and the separate Guest Relations person on the other hand gave me incorrect information on two occasions. One of those faux pas, meant we missed our bus stop on approach to Dubrovnik and that was very inconvenient.

The mini bar in the room is something we never use but the hotel provides it. Keep an eye on your bill (can be accessed via your TV set) we found 6 mini bar items listed which we had not taken. However, reception will delete the items when you bring it to their attention, but it's a bit irritating, and one wonders how that mistake is made and if it is really a "mistake"

Overall had a lovely stay at the hotel. If you like to be completely anonymous in a nicely appointed hotel, at a very picturesque location, then HC could be for you. If you prefer a more boutique offering, then you need to look elsewhere for example their much much smaller sister Hotel Supetar right on the...

I have been thinking of putting the review of the hotel during our stay, but I think it’s better to do it after we left and got time to think of everything happened during ten days stay.

First good impression, we arrived early about 11 in the morning, and we are lucky to have our room ready straight away.

The hotel has 12 floors, the reception floor is Floor R, its between 4th and 5th floor, it’s in the middle level of the hotel building, because it was built along the hill, which is very confusing, it took us three or four days to get used to it.

Our room is on the third floor with the sea view balcony, which is two floors below the reception floor, is also one of the old style rooms which located on first, second, third and forth floor. We like the room, it seems a bit bigger than the new Morden style room. The bed is comfortable.

The downsides are : The room is tired. The bathroom is tired. The corridor is narrower and dark, not enough natural light. The wall plug socket does not have USB-A or USB-C connections. The wooden decoration is very dated, like 70s or 80s. We don’t watch TV, but the TV in the room is so tiny, maybe 15 or 16 inches big.

But these maybe not be issues next year, because we heard the rumours the hotel is going to close and do these rooms up to new Morden style from this November. So When the season starts in 2026, all the room will be new Morden style with more techs(hopefully).

Swimming pools One outdoor pool, and new indoor pool. Filled in with SEA water. Be honest, the size of this hotel, these two pools are not enough for 800 or 900 guests in full capacity. The design of indoor pool is not brilliant, the deep area is not big enough for people who want to do swimming. Steam room and sauna also are good.

Gym If you are a gym person, I think you need to come at the right time, it’s not big, kind of small, considering that the size of hotel can sleep 800 - 900 guests. Maybe five or six people in the gym you will find its full and too busy, also could be very sweaty. Maybe about 10 machines in there, including the treadmill and cross trainer and weights. The big problem for us is open from 8 am in the morning, we wish it could open earlier, like 6 or 7 am.

Beaches The good thing is the hotel has the access to two beaches, one is South beach which is deep and very nice, watch the sea all day is so nice, also has the Nudist Beach, but sometimes the sea is too rough with the Red flag on. The other beach is Beach Cavtat where the seafood restaurant The Spinaker is near, is also popular.

Breakfast is all right. A lot of food, very European style, maybe more Croatian style I guess, you will know what I mean if you go to order the egg omelette. Fruit is very good, fresh prepare melon, watermelon, oranges and grapefruit. It’s Also very busy if you come after 9 am in the morning. The coffee is too strong for us, even we tried to ask for a latte is still too strong for us. I think it’s more Italian coffee.

It’s a very big hotel with over 470 rooms, a lot of staff, which is good, but only three guest lifts, is not enough for the size of this place.

The hotel is on the hill, so there are a lot of steps to go up and down ( just a bit more than the steps to the abbey in Whitby). Don’t worry, the hotel also offers free golf boogie cars to take you to the Beach Cavtat and back to avoid the hard work, if you are not a gym person.

Public area The reception area is very nice and spacious. There are many sitting areas with nice and comfy sofas, some of them even got the gorgeous sea views. Even on the fifth floor, which is also the floor with gym, spa and swimming pools has a large sitting area with nice sea or town/mountains view.

Personal we like this hotel, but we probably don’t think this is five stars hotel, maybe it’s on the top end of four...

We stayed at hotel Croatia for a short 4 night break.

Overall I would recommend the hotel - it’s in a great location of the beautiful village of Cavtat. As others have said it’s not for the faint hearted in terms of its hills and steps but the golf buggy is usually available if you wait by the bottom of the hill. It’s incredibly big and resembles a cruise ship interior.

If you’re expecting 5* pure luxury indulgence this isn’t for you, but if you want a good base for Dubrovnik then I wouldn’t hesitate.

We stayed bed and breakfast so I can’t comment on evening meal. Breakfast was good. Lots of selection and the fresh omelette station was my go to. The quality of some items was lacking but considering it was included, it was fine and enough to fill us up for the day ahead. I personally wouldn’t stay half board unless you can get a really good deal as there are so many places to eat in Cavtat, you’d be missing out.

Staff on the whole were helpful and pleasant, especially the gold buggy drivers who were always very friendly and loved to chat. I did feel the welcome on check in was lacking and still left with a lot of questions about where everything was, timings of food/bars/leisure facilities etc.

We asked if we could keep the room on until 2pm for our later flight. We were told no and can’t help but feel a little let down that no effort was put into checking (we’d asked about it on arrival too) - especially as you could book a room online for that night so the hotel was not full. We were allowed to leave our luggage however which was appreciated.

We had a refurbished sea view room which was lovely and worth paying extra for. The room was spacious with a big comfortable bed and nice bathroom. There was a safe which was free to use and fit laptop/ipad.

I feel as though cleanliness could be improved slightly. Overall it was ok and housekeeping also offered a turndown service and chocolates which is a nice touch.

Don’t be fooled by the minibar - the prices are found deep in the TV menu and you’ll end up paying €3 for a small glass bottle of water.

We chose not to use the pool as it was very shaded, though I’d imagine nice in the summer months. Instead we based ourselves by the Spinaker restaurant and swam in the sea. This was a lovely area. Hopefully they will increase the number of sunbeds towards peak season as we waited a while for one on our first day. Some of the sunbeds were damaged and a few of the tiles were coming lose so you had to be careful at this area.

There was a large conference on at the hotel at the time of our visit. It did confuse the feel of the hotel somewhat - it was more of a corporate hotel than the 5* luxury perhaps advertised. Being such a huge hotel I’m not sure why they don’t limit conferences to a certain floor or area.

Would I recommend yes, but if returning I’d probably look to stay in a smaller more personal/boutique hotel out of personal preference 🙂

To improve it would be nice to see a refillable water fountain in the lobby area, an improvement in customer info and the general greeting on arrival and more flexible options for...