Dubrovnik to Split Cruise 7nts on MS Splendid (Saturdays)

Make your own way to Dubrovnik, where the ship is berthed at Gruz harbour and cabins are available from the afternoon. The Cruise Director introduces the crew and your fellow passengers at 7pm, and dinner follows at 7.30pm. Guests arriving late in the evening are looked after, provided the crew has been given notice.

After breakfast a guide and coach take you into the old town for a walking tour of the Stradun, the Rector's Palace and the Franciscan monastery, with the return transfer around midday. Lunch is served on board as we sail for Slano, a sheltered bay on the Dubrovnik Riviera backed by pine forest and olive groves. An optional excursion runs to Ston, with its salt pans and its long defensive wall.

A morning cruise to Mljet, the most wooded island in the Adriatic, where the national park protects two connected saltwater lakes and a twelfth-century Benedictine monastery on an islet in the larger one. Park entrance is payable on arrival. We continue to Korcula in the afternoon, a walled town on a small peninsula with a guided walk through its cathedral, walls and the house tradition claims as Marco Polo's birthplace.

A morning at sea with a swim stop and lunch on board, arriving at Vis in the afternoon. The furthest of the inhabited islands from the mainland, Vis was a closed military zone until 1989, which spared it the development of its neighbours and left the harbour much as it was. The afternoon is free for the waterfront and the beaches, and an optional excursion visits the fishing village of Komiza.

An early cruise to the islet of Bisevo and its Blue Cave, where light entering below the waterline turns the interior a deep luminous blue. Entry is by small boat and depends on the sea state, so it cannot be guaranteed in advance. A swim stop and lunch on board follow before we continue to Hvar, where a local guide walks you through the Renaissance square, the cathedral and the arsenal.

We sail for Bol and Zlatni Rat, the shingle spit that shifts its shape with the current and appears on half the postcards in Croatia, with time ashore for a swim or a coffee. Lunch and further swim stops follow as we continue to Pucisca, a working village built from the pale limestone quarried above it, home to the only stonemasonry school in Croatia. The Captain's Dinner is served this evening.

A morning cruise to Split, where a guided walk leads through Diocletian's Palace, the fourth-century retirement complex that the city simply grew into and never left. Lunch is served on board as we sail the short distance to Omis, set where the Cetina river cuts through the coastal mountains and long a pirate stronghold. The evening is free.

Breakfast on board, then a complimentary transfer from Omis into the centre of Split, arriving by about 9am.