Dear Wanda,

Thank you very much for all of your excellent guidance on our recent visit to Croatia.  The tour you designed was perfect.  We thoroughly enjoyed Istria and even our 4 children who initially were skeptical about Istria eventually admitted that it was absolutely fantastic.  We had great fun swimming around the beaches of Opatija and wandering through the old town.  The tour of Pula, Rovinj and Motovun was outstanding especially seeing the ancient Roman architecture in Pula, walking around the wall of Motovun and tasting the local truffles.  We had an amazing time in Krka exploring the waterfalls and swimming in the pools at the base.  The tour of Split was incredibly educational, and your guide added a number of fun and interesting facts to keep our kids engaged.

Overall, it was one of the best family vacations we’ve had.  Thank you again.

Best regards,

Lawrence Jay Olson – Westfield, NJ
August 2018

Dear Wanda,

Our trip was unbelievable! Croatia is beautiful!

Thanks so much!

Kiva Barr – Short Hills, NJ
July 2018

Dear Wanda,

We’ve just returned from our wonderful trip to Croatia and wanted to thank you for making it so special. Your staff, drivers and guides were all exceptional.

It’s no wonder that you have such a good reputation.

K. & S. – Beverly Hills, CA
June 2018

Dear Wanda,

Thank you very much for a fantastic trip to the beautiful country of Croatia. Everything was great. All of the guides and drivers were knowledgeable, responsible and most importantly fun! It was a pleasure getting to know each of them and learn about their perspective on the country and their experiences. These personal interactions were a highlight of our trip. The restaurants were excellent. We especially enjoyed Pelegrini, Filippi, LD and Bokeria.

Some feedback…

Montenegro is beautiful and we really enjoyed our lunch there. The driver was fantastic and we learned a lot. Danny, the guide in Kotor, is most definitely engaging and knowledgeable, however, I am not sure if there was a delay or miscommunication but after a long drive, the walking tour could not have lasted more than 15-20 minutes. In addition, with traffic and delay at the border, I’m not sure I would recommend this excursion. It was a very long day, mostly in the car.

The hotel in Korcula was fine. I liked the location, a bit removed from town and felt that it was an authentic reflection of a European destination resort. The food was pretty bad. There was little gluten free food available for Robert and the coffee, as we laughed about with Lea (who is AWESOME!!) was atrocious! We ate in town the second morning.

We are not into Tripadvisor or other online review sites but are happy to give personal recommendations if you would like. The experience was seamless and stress free. We enjoyed every minute.

The most exciting experience was our last night, watching the Croatia team beat Russia, surrounded by new friends and screaming fans in Split!

We will never forget it and are looking forward to the defeat of France tomorrow!!

Thank you again,

Jill Kingsly & Robert Friedman – Short Hills, NJ
July 2018

Dear Wanda,

I just wanted to thank you for planning a wonderful trip for us. We had a ball!

Thanks again,

Margo Levine – New York, NY
June 2018

Dear Wanda,

We are now back in Nantucket, and I wanted to let you know that we had a very enjoyable trip through Croatia.

All of the places where we stayed–except for Hotel Ambassador which seemed to be a convention center–were charming.
The guides were generally very good, although some were better than others–although that may have been due to the facts that the sights being visited with some of the guides were not as interesting as the places visited with others, such as in Dubrovnik and Pula. Our best guides were Sandra Bandera who, after we visited Pula and had discussed with her our interests, changed the itinerary eliminating a visit to Motovun and took us to Porec to view a 13th century cathedral, and Marina Krsticevic who guided us through Dubrovnik. Viktorija Modric was certainly our third best guide.

Some of our drivers were just OK, while others were very good and Josip Prizmic was just excellent. Also, the motor yacht charter was an excellent addition to the trip and something we would strong recommend for others.

Mirela did an excellent job with the restaurant reservations, and we were glad we didn’t need to otherwise seek her assistance with any problems. Please send her a gratuity of $xxx on our behalf, charging our credit card on file with you. However, you may want to tell Mirela to consider deleting Restaurant Bevanda in Opatija, as the wait staff was not very good and rushed our service, and Dubravkin put in Zagreb, where the food was terrible–the Concierge at the Esplanade Hotel later said that their chef had just recently left the restaurant.

In summary, we really enjoyed our trip. If you have any questions about our trip, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Richard & Patricia Belford – Nantucket, MA
June 2018

Dear Wanda,

Just an FYI — we’re back from Croatia. In any case, you did a fantastic job with the trip planning…everything was perfect. Thank you for your excellent work…We’ll be going back to Croatia in the future and look forward to booking via your firm (again!)

GREAT work.

Ian J. Norris – Fort Lauderdale, FL
June 2018

Dear Wanda

We’re home. All went exceedingly smoothly and everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves.  Thanks for all of your work in getting things organized.

I’m happy to write up the positive experience on whichever ratings platform you want.

Sincerely,

Glen Weisberg – Chicago, IL
June 2018

Dear Wanda,

I didn’t think it would take me this long to get back to you, but life has a way of getting really busy once back from a vacation!

Again, Mike and I had a wonderful time, and fell in love with Croatia and its people. I’m so glad that you encouraged us to start with you in Trieste, as it was charming and provided such a great introduction to the Istrian region. I do want to say that our guide there, Edi, was really great, and I hated that it was the one time during the trip that I was in a lot of pain, so I hope he didn’t think we were uninterested. I wanted to be a sponge soaking up all he had to say, and I could barely think straight! Thankfully my back pain did not linger and impact the rest of our trip. In fact we went to the Castello di Miramare that afternoon and really enjoyed that. While mentioning Edi, I want to say that all of the guides were excellent, providing both historical and cultural background, as well as a feel for what it’s like to live in each place now.

We loved the mix of hotels that you selected, and felt that they really fit the locations. We had really good restaurant experiences, with one exception (below), and have told many that the table we had at Restaurant Puntalina in Rovinj was our best sunset dining experience ever! The food was really good, but the setting, table and staff were fabulous. Again, we thought you recommended a really good mix of restaurants, and we enjoyed the variety, from the local food/casual, relaxed atmosphere at Konoba Varos in Split to the marvelous dining experience at 360 in Dubrovnik–expensive, but so worth it. They deserve that Michelin star!

Again, thank you so much for a wonderful trip! We will definitely be big advocates for Tasteful Croatian Journeys.

All the best to you and your team,

Paula & William Morgan – Westfield, NJ
May 2018

Dear Wanda,

I thought I would share a few observations on what was a wonderful vacation:

1. Driver and guides – excellent all the way around.  Good information; knowledgeable and at times very funny with a sense of humor.  All our connections were on time and worked out perfectly.
2. The national Park;
   1. More beautiful than the falls we experienced in Peru.
   2. Ethno House – the person who checked us in was impatient, rude and gave poor information.  If not for the driver we never would have experienced the park.  He was terrific and commented on the man at the reception as “a bore.”  We did not have tickets and hence could not enter at gate 3. He even said that with tickets gate 3 would not allow us to pass.  Bad information.  Again the driver to the rescue.
   3. The hotel was fine, but the food is second to our least favorite.  Just adequate.
3. Split:
   1. Great city and the rooms were perfect and convenient.
   2. Spur of the moment lunch – Bokeria – highly recommend
   3. Dinner – Zinfandel – near top of our list for best meal
   4. Lunch at the waterfront was a sister to zinfandel.  I still salivate over the short rib sandwich.
   5. Museum of the sculpture is not to be missed.
4. Korcula – what can I say.  Just spectacular
   1. Hotel was perfect and great breakfast
   2. First night dinner – Filippi was terrific – you should always recommend
   3. Best meal on the trip was – Restaurant Dvor – 5 minutes from Hotel and Black pasta was sensational.  Great service and good wine selection
5. Dubrovnik
   1. I may have missed this but I believe instructions were we needed to get our own ferry tickets.  Driver purchased them so would be good to know in advance on the itinerary.
   2. Great city and Hotel was 4 star all the way.  Can’t imagine a better place.
   3. Excellent breakfast
6. Montenegro – I would suggest skipping.  Too far and too much car sitting
   1. The lunch stop was by far our least favorite.  Pretty tasteless, expensive and spotty service.  I suggest a different location.
   2. Return from Montenegro – Our driver picked a lunch spot that had a waterwheel.  Food and location were great.  Good call on his part as it was a rainy day.
7. Other:
   1. You might encourage people to sign up for international phone coverage.  Was disadvantage not having that option

Gene Ross – Virginia Beach, VA
May 2018