RSD Travel
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Croatia, Montenegro & Herzegovina - perhaps avoid the meal options
Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia - 14 night trip We joined the 15-day Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro trip arranged by RSD. Price-wise it was good value and the trip overall was worth it. I rated it a bit above average but there was some "confusing" or "mis-communicated" information about food. The guide (Sirkan) was competent and pleasant, and spoke good English though the bus did require some attention. Travel times are early, but Freebird from Gatwick worked fine. Dinners in hotels in first week (we chose the £139 per head dinner option) were pretty poor, other than the first and last nights inDubrovnik; breakfasts were probably 5 out of 10. But given the price of the trip, do not expect haute cuisine! But, a warning: the guides put pressure on participants to take hotel dinner or all-inclusive meal options in the second week in Budva Montenegro; this was the "holiday" rest week at an Adriatic resort. The guides are probably incentived to do this. Do not take the options without serious thought as they may be expensive (and boring) choices. We were told by the guide that alternate eating arrangements to those on offer at Euro 150 (dinner) or Euro 250 (lunch, drinks and dinner) per head at the hotel in Budva (the Mediteran) were tough to find or to get to. Besides, the options HAD TO BE PAID IN CASH! RSD does not make it crystal clear in the literature that the extras HAVE to be paid in cash, so take sufficient as getting Euro in ATMs in foreign countries does have a cost. That alternative eating places are difficult to get to is absolute rubbish! The Mediteran hotel has a perfectly good and simple restaurant (Azzuro) five minutes away on the beach; and very price competitive and tasty food. Besides, there are several alternatives along the beach. We were very happy with the hotel overall (comfy and clean room with a view) but would have been irritated to dine there every night on the same fare nightly when more creative and often cheaper (for us) alternatives are a stroll away! Be warned; there are many options outside! As for complaints of many on the trip about visiting carpet, leather and jewellery factories which are scheduled into the trip, suck them up. They are irritating but not so bad. There is always a price to be paid for lower tour prices and while pressure to buy in these factories is quite intense, saying NO is not so hard!