Greetings,
My family of four needs to get from Ljubljana to Rijeka on a Friday in July in time to catch the 5pm ferry to the island of Cres. The Flix bus schedule I found only has options at 5am and 6pm. The 6pm is too late and the 5am is too early-we’ll be driving in from Kranska Gora and need to drop the rental car in Ljublana before heading down to Croatia.
Can anyone provide other options? Can we hire a car/driver for a reasonable price? Any advice appreciated.
Warmly, Amy
We used Go Opti for this transfer a few years ago. I don’t remember the cost but you can plug in your date and number of passengers to see what the price would be.
We took the same ferry that you will be taking and we were able to store our luggage at the ferry station, enabling us to have lunch and walk around Rijeka for a bit before we departed.
Enjoy your trip!
https://www.goopti.com/en/transfers/slovenia-ljubljana/croatia-rijeka
Will you be renting a car in Croatia or will you be using public transport to get around Cres? If the former, you could rent in Rijeka, take the bridge to Krk and then hop on the short ferry between Krk and Cres (Valbiska - Merag), which departs hourly instead of being tied to the one daily departure from Rijeka.
If the latter, I agree a shuttle transfer such as GoOpti is your best bet. Through a cursory search I couldn’t find any bus or train connections that would get you to Rijeka at a reasonable time before 5pm. On the other hand, it’s still quite early, the bus timetables will likely change as many seasonal summer routes are only announced in the spring.
We are hoping to get around Cres by boat and car if needed, although we’re planning to just rent in Cres. I found a rental company in town that offers both-at Nauticaboric.com. But it’s great to know there are other options, ie Rijeka and ferry from Krk.
Go-Opti looks like a good choice, thank you. Questions about Go-Opti:
How far in advance do you recommend I book it?
Do they wait with you at the border?
How long does it usually take to go through customs at the border in July?
Thanks so much for the information!
Warmly, Amy
GoOpti will take you all the way to Rijeka, they won’t leave you at the border. The price depends on the size of your group, whether it’s a shared or private transfer and how large of a departure time window are you willing to tolerate. The pricing is dynamic, so the earlier you book the better.
On a Friday in July, you’re looking at waiting anything between 15 minutes to over an hour to clear immigration. There are smaller less busy alternative crossings but they are only open to EU citizens. There are no customs checks between Slovenia and Croatia.
You can check the holiday traffic forecast for July 2020 here: https://www.promet.si/portal/en/traffic-forecast.aspx?day=1&month=7&year=2020&dayto=31&monthto=7&yearto=2020
