We're looking at taking a small ship "cruise" from Dubrovnik to Split and renting a car there for the onwards journey to Slovenia. IN terms of the cruse I'm looking at two options with Katarina Line (which seems to be the major player/sublettor in the area). One is a shorter one: 5 nights (DUBROVNIK - ŠIPAN/TRSTENIK - KORČULA - HVAR -BOL - SPLIT); the other is a longer 7 night cruise (DUBROVNIK - ŠIPAN or SLANO - MLJET - KORČULA - VIS - HVAR - BOL - MAKARSKA - PUČIŠĆA - OMIŠ - SPLIT). The ships carry about 25-30 people and are fairly spartan so I'm viewing it more of a floating hotel/swimming platform/lunch spot rather than a classic cruise.
Has anyone on this board taken a Katarina cruise? If so, what are your impressions? Also, is the longer option too much of a good thing, ie "seen one seaside Croatian village, seen them all" sort of thing. Are the stops on the second itinerary spectacular enough to warrant the longer cruise? We were in Croatia a few years back (basically stopped in Dubrovnik on a Med cruise) and liked Croatia enough to see it in much more depth, but never saw more of it than that.