The Best Hotels in Split and Dubrovnik Before Your Yacht Charter

Plan 1 night ashore before your Croatia yacht charter. Boarding day goes better when you are already in town: a delayed flight or a wandering suitcase has time to catch up with you, provisioning gets finished while you have a slow breakfast, and you step aboard rested rather than rushed. Where that night belongs depends on where your charter starts, and most of ours begin in Split or Dubrovnik. Still weighing the two? Our Split vs Dubrovnik guide settles it. Below are the hotels our brokers recommend to their own clients, city by city.

Split: Stay Inside the Old Town, or Choose a Resort on Purpose

Most Croatia charters board around Split, and a Split yacht charter usually leaves from the ACI marina in the city or the nearby bases at Trogir and Kastela. For the night before, the real choice is not which hotel but which kind: a small, highly rated hotel inside the historic center, where the evening takes care of itself, or a seafront resort outside it, where the day before boarding is about the pool and the spa. Mo Pristas books it the first way, and he is clear about why.

Hotel Ambasador

Hotel Ambasador is the one hotel in Split that puts both sides of a charter morning on foot. It sits directly on the seafront of the West Coast promenade: the Riva and Diocletian’s Palace are a few minutes’ walk along the water in one direction, the ACI marina an easy walk in the other. The original Ambasador opened in 1937, and the current 5-star reopened in 2022 as a contemporary rebuild on the same site, with around 100 rooms and suites, a rooftop, a pool, and a spa. It is also the top pick of our broker William Mc Nally.

Hotel Park

Hotel Park is Split’s oldest hotel, open since 1921, and proud enough of it that the restaurant is called Split 1921. It is Mo’s pick on the classic side: 72 rooms above Bacvice beach, an outdoor pool, a spa, and about a 10 minute walk into Diocletian’s Palace. The marina side of town is a short taxi ride away, so choose Park for the evening and let the driver handle boarding day.

Briig Boutique Hotel

Briig is the design pick. A 4-star boutique that opened in 2020 next to Bacvice beach, about 10 minutes on foot from Diocletian’s Palace, with a rooftop pool and bar looking over the Adriatic and a spa with a sauna and a hot tub. It sits on the east side of the center, so the marina is a taxi ride rather than a stroll, an easy trade for 1 night.

Radisson Blu Resort & Spa, Split

The Radisson Blu is the resort reset. An upscale seafront resort on the coast east of the old town, a short taxi ride from both the palace and the marina, with 252 rooms, a private pebble beach looking out toward Brac and Solta, and a spa of more than 2,000 square meters, billed as the largest in Split. You will not stroll to dinner in the palace from here, and that is the point: this is the pick when the day before boarding belongs to the pool.

Le Méridien Lav, Split

Le Méridien Lav is the one hotel here with berths at the door. A 5-star resort in Podstrana, about 8 km south of Split, built in 2006 and renovated in 2021, with its own marina, Marina Lav, right in front. It is not walking distance to the old town, so it suits a group treating the pre-charter day as resort time rather than city time. If Split evenings are what you came for, stay central and save Lav for another trip.

Take Your Own Floating Hotel from Split to Dubrovnik

A crewed yacht is the room that travels with the week, same bed every night, new harbor every morning, and the water between these two cities is the best of Croatia. Our Split to Dubrovnik itinerary shows what 7 days of it look like: Brac, Hvar, Vis, Korcula, Lastovo, and Mljet on the way south. Tell us the dates and the group, and we will send a shortlist of yachts that fit.

Dubrovnik: Walls, Cliffs, or the Harbor Side

Charters that start or end in Dubrovnik board at Gruz harbor or the ACI marina at Komolac, up the Rijeka Dubrovacka from town, not at the old port below the walls. The hotel decision splits 3 ways: inside the walls for the atmosphere, on the cliffs either side of them for the sea, or out toward Lapad and Gruz to be near the yacht. Most of the hotels below come off our brokers’ own shortlists.

Hotel Excelsior Dubrovnik

The Excelsior is the grande dame. It grew out of a 1913 villa at Ploce, about 5 minutes on foot east of the old town gates, into a 158-room hotel with a private beach and views across to Lokrum and back at the walls. The guest book runs from Queen Elizabeth II to Elizabeth Taylor. If you want the classic Dubrovnik postcard from your balcony, this is it.

Villa Dubrovnik

Villa Dubrovnik is the hideaway. A 1961 modernist building set into the cliff at Sveti Jakov, a 15 to 20 minute walk east of the walls and a member of The Leading Hotels of the World, with the old town and Lokrum in view from the water side. It is the farthest of the city hotels from Gruz, so boarding day means a longer taxi ride; seclusion with the walls still in view is what you are buying.

Hotel Bellevue Dubrovnik

Bellevue is the one name that appears on both of our brokers’ Dubrovnik lists. The hotel is built into a 30 meter cliff above Miramare Bay, about 10 minutes from the old town, with 91 rooms that all face the sea, a glass elevator down to its own pebble cove, and a Michelin-recommended restaurant. Of the city hotels on this list, it is the closest to the Gruz side after Kazbek, which keeps the boarding-day run short.

The Pucic Palace

The Pucic Palace is the only hotel on this list inside the walls. A 17th-century Baroque palace on Gundulic Square with 19 rooms and suites named after Dubrovnik writers and artists. The old town is pedestrian, so luggage is portered in from the gate, worth knowing the night before a charter, and the reward is waking up on the market square inside a city most people only visit for the day.

Boutique Hotel Kazbek

Kazbek is the natural pick for charter guests. A Renaissance-era stone villa on Gruz Bay in Lapad with 13 rooms and a heated pool in the courtyard, and the closest hotel on this list to where the yachts board. The hotel keeps a speedboat at the marina in front for island runs, so the boat life can start a day early. The old town is about 10 minutes away by car.

Sun Gardens Dubrovnik

Sun Gardens is the resort and family option. A 22-hectare resort 11 km up the coast at Orasac, under The Leading Hotels of the World flag, with 201 sea-view rooms plus residences, 3 outdoor pools, its own beach, and the Elaphiti islands on the horizon. It is not walkable to town and does not try to be; for a family with a day to spend before boarding, the pools beat the queue for the city walls.

1 Night Ashore, 7 Nights Afloat

Book the room for 1 night and the yacht for the week. If the budget question comes first, our guide to what a Croatia yacht charter costs is the place to start. Then tell us who is traveling, when, and which city you would rather begin in, and we will send a shortlist of yachts that fit, transfers from any hotel on this page included.

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