Is there a less expensive way fly into Ljubljana and then fly home from Dubrovnik (to and from the US). Has anyone done this for the Adriatic tour, and what tips do you have (such as round trip to one city with help from public transportation)? Many thanks.
Posted by
Wisconsin
466 posts
We fly out of O'Hare for international trips, and our favored airline is Delta. We are taking the Best of the Adriatic tour in the spring. We are flying into Venice for a couple of pre-tour nights. The flight to Venice has a plane change in Amsterdam. We'll arrange for Go Opti shuttle to get us from Venice to Ljubliana. This is a popular way to transit between the two cities, inexpensive, and the reviews of this transit service are very good.
It was challenging to figure out how to get home from Dubrovnik. I didn't spend much time investigating that before deciding we'll spend a couple of post-tour nights in Amsterdam. We'll get from Dubrovnik to Amsterdam by Easy Jet on a separate ticket. So an open-jaw international flight booking, ORD-VCE prior to the tour, and AMS-ORD after the tour, with East Jet getting us between Dubrovnik and Amsterdam.
When I was looking at Delta's rates for the open jaw itinerary ORD-VCE and AMS-ORD, prices were more than I wanted to pay so I was planning to just monitor rates for awhile and buy when I see a rate I like. However, I priced it out using skymiles and got a great deal, 70,000 skymiles and about $68 in taxes and fees per person. So I booked tickets for my husband and myself using skymiles. This is risk free because if we change our minds about these pre- or post-tour plans, we can get the miles restored and taxes/fees refunded. Once we determine we're not going to change these plans, I'll buy the East Jet tickets. If I were doing that today, the cost would be about 42€ per person. The flight is direct and takes less than 3 hours.
I like the idea of a stress-free day of travel up to Amsterdam, no worry about having to make a connection to another flight. If something goes awry with that Easy Jet flight, we'll book a different flight. After a couple of nights enjoying Amsterdam, a city I've not spent much time in, we'll fly home on a non-stop.
Posted by
WA State
3961 posts
We took The Best of the Adriatic Tour in 2018. We flew Delta from Sea Tac to Venice and enjoyed a week prior to the tour. We took Go Opti from Piazzale Roma to Ljubljana. We highly recommend this transfer. The driver was on time & courteous. We arrived in Ljubljana 2 nights before our tour. We stayed in a lovely apartment on the river & then transferred to our tour hotel. It was great to have the two extra nights in Ljubljana. We flew home Dubrovnik>Zagreb>Seattle. If we had more time we would have stayed a couple nights in Zagreb. https://www.goopti.com/en/transfers/italy-venice/slovenia-ljubljana
Posted by
OP
3 posts
Thank you both very much! I appreciate it!!
Posted by
Washington DC
27929 posts
Zagreb is about 2-1/2 hours from Ljubljana by train or bus, so it's worth pricing flights into Zagreb. I imagine from most origins Zagreb won't be less expensive than Venice, but fares are so origin- and destination-specific that I can't be sure. Zagreb has a nice, bi-level historic center and is especially recommended for art-lovers since it has a lot of art museums.