Croatia
Travel Tips
To make sure you get the experience you want, ask these questions before you book.
September 15, 2026
A catamaran holiday means living aboard a two-hulled sailing boat for a week, sleeping in a cabin, eating most meals on board, and moving between anchorages and small harbours as the weather allows. If you have never done it, the format raises a set of questions that the listings rarely answer, and the answers vary a great deal between one company and the next.
A catamaran sits on two hulls with a bridge deck spanning between them. The boat stays flatter than a single-hulled yacht, the living space sits up at eye level with windows all round rather than below the waterline, and the cabins are split between the two hulls, so people are spread across the boat rather than along a single corridor.
The week runs on a loose rhythm rather than a schedule. You wake up at anchor somewhere, you swim before the heat arrives, you sail for a few hours in the middle of the day, and you end up somewhere new by late afternoon, either anchored in a bay or tied up in a small harbour. Most boats of forty-two feet and up sleep eight to twelve guests, and it is worth asking early how many people will be aboard and how many cabins the boat has.
There are three formats, and they solve different problems rather than sitting on a ladder from worst to best.
Bareboat means you charter the vessel and skipper it yourself, which requires a licence, some experience, and a willingness to be the person responsible when the anchor drags at two in the morning. It is the cheapest per head and the most demanding.
Whole-boat crewed charter means you take the entire catamaran for your own group, with a professional skipper and usually a host or chef, and the route is shaped around what your group wants.
Cabin charter means you take one cabin on a crewed catamaran and share the boat with a small number of other guests, with the route and the group already assembled for you. It suits solo travellers, couples, and anyone who likes the idea of a catamaran without the work of filling one.
Most first-timers are choosing between the second and the third, and the question is usually whether you already have a group or would rather join one.
Mornings are slower than you expect. Coffee in the cockpit, a swim off the back steps before anyone has decided anything, and a conversation with the skipper about where the wind is coming from and what that means for the day. You will sail for perhaps three or four hours, which sounds like a lot until you realise that a good deal of it involves lying on the foredeck watching an island get closer.
Lunch happens at anchor, usually in a bay that you reach by boat and could not reach any other way. Afternoons are yours, for swimming, paddleboarding, reading, or walking into whatever village is within reach of the dinghy. Evenings are either on board with the chef cooking, or ashore at a taverna the skipper knows.
Fresh water is finite. Most catamarans carry tanks and many carry a watermaker, so showers are shorter than the ones you take at home and you turn the tap off while you soap.
The toilets have a routine, and it is worth learning on the first morning. Some boats have electric toilets and some have manual pumps, and both work perfectly well once you know how to use them. The pipes on a boat run a long way, so follow whatever your skipper tells you during the briefing. In our experience the habit that makes the difference is flushing three times rather than once, which keeps the lines clear and keeps any smell out of the cabins.
The cabins are cosy. A double cabin on a catamaran is a comfortable place to sleep and a poor place to unpack a hard suitcase, which is why any good travel agent will tell you to bring a soft bag that folds flat and stows under a bunk.
Heat and noise are connected. Air conditioning on a catamaran runs off a generator, and a generator is not silent, so the question of when it runs is the question of how well you sleep. Some boats run it overnight and you sleep in the hum. Some run it at dinner to cool the cabins down and then shut it off, so you sleep in the quiet. Neither is wrong, but you should know which one you are getting.
The weather decides the route. Every itinerary you are shown is a plan rather than a promise, and along most sailing coasts the wind will redraw it at least once in a week. A good travel agent tells you this before you book rather than on the morning it happens.
Day one can be the wobbliest. A small number of people feel it for the first few hours, it settles, and catamarans make it far less likely than monohulls do. It is worth mentioning to the crew rather than quietly enduring it, since they have remedies on board and have seen it many times.
Here is the part that saves you money and disappointment. Send these to whoever is selling you the week, whether that is a travel agent, a booking platform, or a charter company directly, and pay as much attention to how quickly they answer as to what they say.
Which specific boat will I be on, what year is it, and how long is it? The answer should be a model and a year, not a category. "A forty-two foot catamaran or similar" is common and acceptable at the enquiry stage, but before you book you should know the vessel.
How many guests will be aboard, and how many cabins? Divide one by the other and ask where everyone is sleeping. Eight guests in four cabins means two to a cabin. Twelve guests in four cabins means some people are sleeping in the saloon, which is a perfectly normal arrangement on some trips and worth knowing about in advance rather than discovering at the marina.
What are the bathroom and toilet arrangements for my specific cabin? This varies by boat far more than the photography suggests, and a precise answer here, including where a bathroom is shared between cabins, is a good indication of how the rest of the week will be handled.
When does the generator run, and is there a watermaker? If you are taking a cabin on a shared boat, put this to the travel agent, since the pattern is set by whoever runs the trip. If you are taking the whole boat with your own group, it is your decision to make between you, so agree it before you travel, because one of you will want the air conditioning running all night and one of you will want silence.
Who is the skipper, and what are their qualifications? You want a named person with a commercial certification and local knowledge of the specific coast, not a job title.
Who cooks, and what are the meal arrangements? The skipper will not be cooking for you. Depending on the trip you will have a host or a chef aboard, or nobody, and this varies more than anything else on the list. Some trips include breakfast and a light lunch only. A smaller number include all three meals. Some expect guests to share kitchen duties and take turns with the dishes. Many groups eat dinner ashore most evenings, which is a good way to see a town and a cost that sits outside the advertised price. Ask which of these you are getting, in writing. On our own retreats dinner aboard is included, and guests who would rather eat ashore on a given evening tell us in advance so the chef does not cook for twelve when ten are going out.
How well does the crew know this particular cruising ground? Local knowledge is what gets you into the anchorage with three boats in it instead of the one with thirty.
What is included, and what is not? Ask for it in writing, covering meals, drinks, mooring fees, fuel, gas, port taxes, national park entry fees, and any activities.
Is there an onboard kassa, and how much is it? On most charters the mooring fees, fuel, gas and port taxes are not included in the headline price. Instead, guests each pay into a shared onboard kassa at the start of the week, commonly around three hundred euros a head, and the crew spends it through the week on the boat's running costs. This is standard practice across the industry and there is nothing underhand about it, but it is a real cost that sits outside the price you were quoted, so you want the figure before you travel rather than on the first evening. We include all of these costs in our price and run no kassa.
Are national park fees included? In Croatia, entering the Kornati or Krka national parks carries a per-boat fee, and it is one of the items most often left out of a quote.
What is the cancellation policy, and what happens if the weather cancels a day? You want this in writing before you book, not after.
Is a tip expected, and what is customary? Around ten percent of the charter price is the usual figure for the crew in the Mediterranean, and it is easier to plan for when someone tells you in advance.
Where do we depart from, and how do I get there? Departure marina, nearest airport, and transfer time. A marina that is ninety minutes from the airport changes your flight planning.
How much of the itinerary is fixed? The answer should be honest about the weather. A guaranteed island-by-island schedule on a sailing holiday is promising something the sea has not agreed to.
How many hours a day will we actually be sailing? Some weeks are built around long passages and some around short hops, and the difference is considerable if what you wanted was swimming.
Who else tends to come on these trips? Ages, whether solo travellers are common, whether it skews couples or groups. You are living alongside these people for a week.
What is the atmosphere? There is a wide spectrum in this industry, from quiet weeks built around early mornings to weeks built around late nights, and both are enjoyable if you have chosen the one you wanted.
The pattern to look for is specificity. A good travel agent will tell you the model of the boat, the name of the skipper, the figure in euros, and the parts of the week that are likely to be different from what you are picturing, and they will do it without being asked twice.
The other reliable signal is speed. The people who answer a detailed list of questions within a day or two are the people who will answer when your flight is delayed and you need to reach the boat.
None of the following means you are being cheated. Charter is a small industry, and a slow reply is more often somebody on a boat with no signal than anything else. These are simply the points worth a second email before your money moves.
The boat never becomes a specific boat. "A forty-two foot catamaran or similar" is a reasonable answer early in an enquiry and an unreasonable one on the day you are asked to pay. If nobody will name the vessel and the year, it is usually because the boat has not been secured yet.
The photographs are of a different boat. Look for interior shots that match each other, and ask for a photo of the specific cabin you are being sold.
The inclusions arrive verbally. Anything described on a phone call and never written down is not an inclusion. This applies particularly to the kassa, where you want the figure in writing and in advance.
The itinerary is guaranteed. A route promised island by island regardless of wind is either written by somebody who has not sailed, or a plan that will be sailed in weather where it should not be.
Nobody will tell you who is legally running the trip. The company selling you the week and the company legally responsible for it are often not the same, and the boat itself usually belongs to a third. You want to know which entity is the organiser, where it is registered, and what protection sits behind your money. In the EU and the UK, packages sold by a licensed organiser carry insolvency protection, and a referral or a charter bought direct from a fleet does not work the same way. Ask plainly, and treat an evasive answer as an answer. For our part, we do not own our boats. We charter them from a fleet operator we have met in person and sailed with, and we will tell you which one.
The reviews are all the same age. Five testimonials posted within a day of each other, no surnames, no trip dates, and no detail that could only come from having been there. Real reviews mention the weather, the food, and at least one thing that went mildly wrong. Since this is our first organised retreat, we have no guest reviews yet, and rather than fill that space with something invented, we will publish the reviews of the skipper, the chef and the instructors once each of them is confirmed.
The answers come slowly and partially. Send a list of a dozen questions. The travel agent who answers eleven of them within two days is the one who will answer when your flight is cancelled and you are trying to reach a boat in a marina you have never seen.
Copy those into an email, send them to two or three travel agents, and compare the replies. The exercise takes twenty minutes and it will tell you more than a week of reading listings.
Wake up in a new bay every morning, practice yoga on the beach, and sail the Croatian islands from your own cabin.
2 More Dates Available
"Join this retreat & thank me later." - Gregor (Host)
If the cabin charter format is the one that appeals, our Croatia Yoga & Sail Retreat runs by the cabin from Marina Frapa in Rogoznica, with a skipper and a chef aboard, yoga ashore on the beaches we reach by boat, and a route through the middle of the Dalmatian coast where the islands sit closest together.
If you are travelling as a group and would rather have the whole boat, we also arrange private charters, where we match your group to the right catamaran and crew and build the week around your dates and your sailing area. And if the format itself is still the thing you are working out, our guide to what a cabin charter is covers how the boats, the crew and the sharing actually work.