Transportation in May

There are plenty of daily buses from Dubrovnik to Split. Try getbybus.com . Not sure if schedules will be out for next May yet, but I wouldn't worry about it. There will be buses next May too. Could be there will be a catamaran as well. If not, you can take the bus. You might even find a catamaran from Dubrovnik to Hvar if you are lucky, but I haven't looked into that.

That would be a long day trip to Ljubljana and Bled. You'll probably regret not having more time there. Can't plan to spend a night or two there at least? Fly home out of Venice if not Ljubljana or Zagreb?

I personally wouldn't be buying flights this early for next May, unless you are getting amazing prices.

Zagreb and Ljubljana are about 2 hours apart by car, bus and train. That's assuming there's no border hold-up. Bled is about an hour beyond Ljubljana, more by public transportation because of connection time. That means a day-trip to Ljubljana and Bled is out of the question. You could, I suppose, make the 3-hour drive to Bled, which is quite small and doesn't take a great deal of time to see. Or you could do the shorter drive to Ljubljana. But the latter isn't a half-day sort of destination, and I'd find it frustrating to have just a few hours there. For one thing, the historic district is a good walk from the bus and train stations, and I don't know how close you'd be able to park a car.

I can't tell from your post whether you plan to spend any time seeing Zagreb. If not, I'd absolutely forget a rushed day-trip to Slovenia and spend the day in Zagreb. It has a very nice, good-sized historic area, lively cafes, and many interesting museums.

Public buses run from Dubrovnik to Kotor. I'm not sure about Sunday, but I think you'll be OK Monday through Saturday. Public serice to Mostar is provably pretty limited in May, but there's a chance of bus tours to those places. It's very helpful, though, if your schedule provides a bit of flexibility as to which days you take those trips. Check BusCroatia for public-bus schedules in September and October. If those look good, that's an encouraging sign for May.

While most transport schedules don't change much from year to year, I'd say that ferries are the most fickle. Various ferry operators can add or drop routes in unpredictable ways. Smaller boats can also be weather-dependent. But the land options should be reliable.

The Krilo catamaran timetable for Dubrovnik to Split won't be released until next year, but it hasn't changed for the past couple of years. At that time of year, it only runs Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday. The bus runs year round, but there will be fewer buses than in the summer peak.

If you are staying on Hvar rather than just visiting for a day, take the Krilo catamaran direct from Dubrovnik, then head to Split. Jadrolinija also the Split/Hvar route.

Thank you everyone for your replies!

Andrew & acraven - I took a look at getbybus.com/buscroatia.com, they seem to show a lot of different buses, have either of you ever booked buses on those sites?

We didn't actually intend to spend any time in Zagreb but we'll have to because of some other transportation timing and Zagreb being a transport hub between Croatia and Hungary, so we figured we would check out Slovenia. I saw a bunch of companies offering guided day trips there if the bus schedules are not favorable. We once did a day trip to the Arctic Circle from Fairbanks which is about 12 hours of driving round-trip, so we are pretty used to the long day trips, haha.

Laura & Jennifer, thanks so much for the assurances about the ferry and buses as well. We weren't planning to spend a night on Hvar, just visit from Split (I am trying to minimize the number of times we switch hotels), and I saw the jadrolinea ferry has a lot of times.

When would you all say that the high season begins in Croatia? June?

I've taken a lot of Balkan buses but have never booked one online. I normally buy my onward ticket at the train station one or two days in advance--more for fear of running into a long ticket-counter line on departure day than for other reasons, but there is some concern that a bus (especially one crossing a border) might sell out.

I am not terribly confident about the precision of the the online schedule information for buses in that part of Europe. I basically don't trust anything except information obtained at the bus station in the departure city. I couldn't help noticing that when I asked tourist office personnel about bus schedules, they picked up the phone and called the appropriate bus station rather than going online. I figured there was a reason for that.

If you really want to the long day trip from Zagreb to Bled + Ljubljana, here's what I'd do:

Take the TRAIN, not the bus, from Zagreb directly to Bled (there are direct trains I believe). The train won't to wait in border queues like buses and cars might have to. (There will be a passport check at the border, though, but you stay on the train.) Looking now (schedule might change by next May), there's a direct train leaving Zagreb at 6:55a, arriving Lesce-Bled at 10:02a. That's the one I'd be on to make the most of your long day.

There are two train stations in Bled: Lesce-Bled and Bled Jezero. Most people recommend Lesce-Bled, but you have to take a local bus or taxi from there on to the town of Bled - a bit too far to walk. Bled Jezero station is another possibility for a day trip - it requires a connection at Jesenice, and the station is up the hill across the lake from the town of Bled. But...if you will walk around the lake anyway and won't have bags, taking Bled Jezero station in one direction might make sense. I see that inbound, you'd have an hour connection at Jesenice with that morning train, so I'd get off at Lesce-Bled and take the local bus from there in your case. Going back to Ljubljana, you might take the train out of Bled Jezero - if the timing works out for you.

Or just take a direct bus from the town of Bled to Ljubljana on the way back - that's probably easiest if you walk all the way around the lake.

There's a direct train from Ljubljana at 21:05 getting into Zagreb at 23:36. That would be a doable if very long day trip. I'd still probably spend the night in Ljubljana on the way back and to get to Budapest(?) take the longer train from Ljubljana. Ljubljana really sparkles at night, and if you have to leave at 21:05 you'll miss it, mostly.