Blue Cave Tour with grilled lunch from Split

I set out on the excursion on a Friday morning with 11 others. I will say at the outset that I enjoyed this trip. If you book this experience, you will also enjoy it. However, at this price point, you do anticipate a certain level of polish. In short, the tour was definitely enjoyable not quite worth the price. There was a minor issue near the beginning, but I don't retract any rating for that, but rather for how the response to that issue could have been handled better given the price point. I'll elaborate further on. Meeting the owner before stepping on the boat was a pleasure. It's clear he cares about the boat specifically, about running a good tour company, and giving people a good experience. This imbued me with a lot of optimism, as we were about to spend many hours on the boat, and we all paid quite a bit to be there. There were a few themes here that could have really been played on in the tour, but ultimately fell very flat: (a) the boat itself is clearly nice, as the owner was describing it was custom made; (b) the owner has some family connections including the restaurant on Vis; (c) this is a small tour, and as such getting to know each other (including the guides) is a real possibility. Now, talking about the tour: it's a long ride to the Blue Cave. The boat is very powerful, comfortable, and has a nice windshield. The pastries offered were (I'm fairly certain) from Tommy, but having some snacks was still very appreciated since it was going to be a long day. About 90% of the way to Blue Cave, the engine unfortunately had some issues. We were taken the remainder of the way by other tour boats who offered a helping hand. Being on these boats, it was clear how our boat was "superior". Anyway - issues happen. It's totally fine. Everyone was in good spirits, both the crew and us tourists. We arrive at the island where the Blue Cave is. Unfortunately, due to boat issues, we sat around for the long queue for 2 hours, instead of going back out on the boat to do some swimming. This was advertised at the beginning. I think here is where there was a solid opportunity to "make it back up" to the guests, as the expectation of not sitting around trapped on a crowded island with nothing to do for 2 hours was advertised (and thus expected) to not be something we would be doing. No one complained, as we understand that unavoidable issues happen. The boat was eventually fixed and we arrived back after the Blue Cave experience. The island there is fairly miserable, with only one little spot for water with the worst staff on Earth. If our boat staff were really on top of it, with the experience so far, perhaps they could have brought water in from the boat....? we were all waiting around on the dock, it would have been an easy gesture. We are not entitled folk and it was nice to see that amongst the guests. Anyway, we went next to Vis for lunch, where the owner has (if I recall) the family running on the restaurant. I will say that the food was serviceable but just okay - a piece of fish with a few fries. I was very hungry an hour after lunch, but luckily Hvar had some shops. In terms of themes, this is where the tour was showing where it was falling flat for the price: clearly the owner cares that this is his family's restaurant, they grow their own wine etc. if I recall. Perhaps we could have gotten some connection to the food and wine itself? From one of the proprietors? Instead, it just felt like a very "here is your [small] meal" type of situation, and there are plenty of tours that do that. This was a real shame, because if the people there had a hand in the making of our food and drink etc., why not make a connection to that? On the note of themes: The boat was clearly very nice. One way to make this tour worth the price would be to lean into that: swim from the boat itself, find some secluded coves away from people.... instead we were dropped at the usual tourist spots. Vis was more secluded, but still there are boats that can take you to any beach. Hvar and the journey to Hvar was fine. If you've been to Hvar, you know what I mean. At the end of the tour, we were all tired. I could see that as we pulled into Split there were a few murmurs of discontent from the guests about lack of compensation for the issue in the tour. I could hear this more openly walking behind guests before we went separate ways in Split. Any tour company can take you to Blue Cave and drop you like luggage for a couple of hours; and indeed, we were all understanding of the situation with the boat, but nothing was really changed about the tour in response to this. About the experience more broadly: I think the owner needs to ask himself what type of experience he wants to provide at this price point. Is it about the "connection" to the food and family? Lean into the story. Is it about finding less tourist traps? Perhaps skip Blue Cave and Hvar entirely, and focus on secluded beaches. Is it about the boat? Find ways to utilize the boat such as a communal gathering/swim on the boat itself. There are *plenty* of tours that are this kind of "first we are here and then we are there and then we go there and you are there" type of thing. This was that type of tour, just with a slightly nicer boat (minus the issues). To summarize: I enjoyed this tour. I'm not upset about the minor boat issue, though it seems others were. But I think at this price point the tour as a whole fell a little flat, and additionally so in that there was not really an adaptive response to the issue and the deficit it caused in the guests' experience. Thank you staff for being calm and collected and for giving us a good experience - none of this is to act entitled. But if this were a report card, it would say "good work overall - but see me after class".

Fantastic day, well organised and super friendly. Boat was perfect (in the words of my daughter “amazing”) and far superior to many other tours that we could see. Delicious lunch followed by snorkelling. Hvar was beautiful and my daughter (14) gave it 10 out of 10. Highly recommend - they do exactly what they say.

A great way to see the city and become familiar with the culture. Ivana is a local and gave us great insights into what its was like to grow up here and how things have changed over the past few decades. We learned so much! Her English was perfect and she was fun! The food was delish!

Blue Caves were cool. Probably not worth 3 hours wait but not the tour companies fault. The swim spot with the restaurant was amazing. Hvar was a good stop but not sure it was worth it since we only had an hour. Need more options than beer and wine for drinks though.

This island cruise was worth every penny. We were able to maximize our time in Solit by taking this all day cruise to see the Blue Cave with additional stops at a private beach and family restaurant on Vis, followed by a quick hop off to see the town of Hvar. The owner met us at the docks and Cena and Jeri took us out for the day. Breakfast, lunch, coffee and drinks included all day. It was just a delight to spend the day with people from all over the world, Croatia, US, South Korea, Venezuela, Spain, and Brazil…..an unexpected highlight of the cruise! Pro tip: the wait for the cave is looooong (1.5h) Try to get out early and bring all of your stuff with you to pass the time…. Water, towels, snacks, books, etc.