Your rating of this hotel:
6.0
from 10
Hotel ratings by criteria:
Rooms:
6.0
Service:
7.0
Cleanliness:
8.0
Food:
8.0
Amenities:
6.0
So, on August 31.2005, our journey to Croatia began at the Tolmachevo airport in Novosibirsk. Six hours of flight in a cramped TU-154 was brightened up only by the periodic offers of stewardesses to eat or drink something. Before landing in Pula, our Carcass unexpectedly made several sharp turns, but everything ended well, and now we are stomping on hot concrete towards the building with the inscription “Zracna Luka Pula”. The first acquaintance with the Croatian language ; -) Only one Il-86 was noticed on the runway, not a single other aircraft, later we realized that most vacationers in Istria simply come there in their cars. In the deserted building of the airport, we only briefly lingered near the bored border guards, who lazily put their stamps in their passports, not burdening themselves with looking at photos and vouchers, the customs ignored us altogether.
Attention! Duty free shop is only in the departure hall, so there is no chance to buy cheap drinks on the day of arrival! By the way, there you will have the last opportunity before departure to turn the rest of the local currency into something useful. Basically, the assortment consists of imported and Croatian alcohol, and the prices, of course, are somewhat lower than in stores.
After a short hitch, we found a lady from Lucky Travel who met us, got on the bus and our “group transfer” began. Those who stayed in hotels near Pula were more fortunate, and our trip to the Delfin hotel lasted another 3 hours. Finally, we got to the hotel, presented our voucher, which indicated that we were entitled to “1 DBL standart”, received our keys and, after wandering a little along the corridors, got to the right door. The room, of course, turned out to be modest, but we were struck not by its modest size and not by the old furniture, which apparently remembers Tito's times, but by the fact that the door, which, as we assumed, should lead to the balcony, actually led to the lawn in front of the hotel. That is, instead of a balcony, we were supposed to have a small area tiled and fenced with a decorative fence, on which a plastic table and two chairs were placed. I must say that Croatia is a very calm country, people everywhere go to sea and leave their belongings unattended, for two weeks I never heard the sound of a car alarm siren, although we also visited Zagreb. Yes, everything is great, but we, who grew up in other realities, wanted to sleep peacefully at night, opening the door to the balcony, and not to the street (albeit a Croatian street! ). In the evening, with the help of our guide, we found out that the “1 DBL standart” indicated in our voucher does not imply a balcony in the room. If we want to get a room with a balcony and a view of the hotel courtyard, we need to pay extra 6 EUR for each day, for a room with a balcony and a view of the sea, an additional charge of 8 EUR per day. We chose the second option, left 104 UER and moved into room E499 with a great sea view. If we were less fortunate, and the room was a couple of floors lower (we lived on the fifth floor), then we only had a view towards the sea, since the whole hotel is surrounded by fairly tall pine trees.
Try to find out in Russia what number you are offered! This hotel has rooms with sea view, pine tree view, hotel courtyard view, concrete wall view and street access directly from the room. Feel the difference!
To communicate with the hotel staff, you will need more German or Italian, most of them speak fluently, English is already worse, and it’s better not to remember Russian at all, although Croatian is a bit similar to it. For example, “praise” in Croatian means “thank you”. There were no problems with the staff at the hotel. The room is cleaned every day, the towel is changed only after you yourself recognize it as dirty and throw it on the floor. Such rules and about them you will be informed by information in the room in German, English and Italian : -)
There are no payphones in the hotel, but the nearest one is literally a couple of minutes walk from it, next to the road leading to the hotel. For us to communicate with relatives, the daily exchange of SMS was quite enough. Don't forget to turn on roaming if you take your mobile phone with you!
For those yearning for TV on the ground floor, next to the reception, there is a room where you can watch satellite channels. You just need to catch the moment when the Bundesburgers who love watching football are no longer there : -)
The beach is very close, literally 50 meters from the hotel. The choice is either a concrete platform, with handrails like in a pool or a pebble beach. We rested on the platform, it is more spacious and a regular towel is quite enough to sit comfortably enough. You can rent a sun lounger, it costs 20 kunas (about 100 rubles) per day. Dangerous sea urchins, which are talked about so much, at least we did not see on this beach.
I highly recommend bringing fins, a mask and an air mattress. The beauty of the Adriatic, of course, cannot compete with the Red Sea, but still it is an amusing sight. Many people observe the life of the seabed for a long time, just by putting on a mask and lying on an air mattress.
In the hotel restaurant in the morning and evening buffet. The food is just excellent, breakfast was enough so that the thought of lunch simply did not appear. Everything is tasty and varied, perhaps, I was only surprised by the dislike of Croats for juices and the terrible taste of coffee from some antediluvian apparatus. Another nuance - at dinner, all drinks, up to mineral water, are for a fee and not cheap. We solved this problem by buying inexpensive young wine in the Konzum supermarket in Poreč . Poreč can be reached by bus, which stops in an hour right in front of the hotel entrance, a ticket for it costs 12 kunas (about 60 rubles) or walk along the footpath along the sea in about an hour. What do you like more - choose for yourself.
Since German and Austrian pensioners predominate among vacationers on the shore, the evening life is appropriate. There is only one night disco for the entire hotel complex, which includes Delfin. In the evenings, tourists loiter along souvenir shops or sit in cafes near hotels, listening to music performed by local bands. According to my observations, Delfin was the most advanced of the local bands, I even noticed “Should I Stay Or Should I Go” in their repertoire. Anyone else remember The Clash?
Delfin is not the most suitable place for a nudist holiday, but there is FKK-Strand literally 10 minutes away on the campsite, which is inhabited mainly by Germans. If you are not embarrassed by the neighborhood of 50-year-old German women and the involuntary attention of tourists passing along the path, literally five meters from the beach, you can sunbathe in what your mother gave birth.
We did not visit any excursions, although, of course, they were persistently offered to us. We rented a Ford Focus and explored the Lima Canal, Rovinj and Pula on our own, on the way to Zagreb we made a stop in Rijeka. We were offered a day trip to Zagreb for 60 EUR and they said something about some good shopping. Complete nonsense. We spent two days in Zagreb and managed to see very little, let alone a few hours! There is nothing special to buy in Zagreb, the prices are the same as in Russia, and if there is a seasonal sale, then you need to spend a lot of time and go around a bunch of tiny shops to find something. Time is a pity!
On September 5, the day before our arrival, The Rolling Stones performed in Zagreb... It was terribly disappointing and the only thing left was to take a picture for memory against the background of their poster : -(
You can travel around Croatia by rented car or by bus. We have tried both options. Forde's two-day trip through Rovinj, Pula, Rijeka to Zagreb cost us about 100 EUR, including rent, fuel (eurodiesel at 1 EUR per liter! ), payment for parking and travel on toll motorways and, of course, through the famous five-kilometer Uč ka tunnel ( 5062 meters). Let me remind you that this is only half the cost, because we traveled with a group and shared the costs 50/50. I do not think that there is a need to talk about the impressions left by our journey. You can’t say everything in a nutshell, and a detailed story will take too much time. I would only advise you to definitely visit Rovinj, a very beautiful old town.
In Zagreb, having struggled looking for a parking space in the narrow streets in the city center and finding out that the most affordable double room here costs about 110 EUR, we found a tourist information center on Ban Jelacic Square (this is the central square of Zagreb) and there we were offered a room in modest hotel for only 59 EUR (including breakfast! ). It took about 20 minutes to get from our hotel to the center by tram. The fare was 6.5 kunas (about 30 rubles). Tickets can be bought at Tobacco Shop tobacco shops and from the tram driver, but for some reason they are more expensive on the tram. Inside the tram there is a special device into which you need to insert a ticket and a mark about the start time of the trip will appear on it, the ticket gives the right to ride on any trams for three hours. In the two days we spent in Zagreb, we never saw the inspectors in the tram ; -)
We returned from Zagreb to Porec by bus. There is a direct flight only once a week, so I had to go through Rijeka. We did not notice any problems with tickets, all the buses were half empty. Tickets from Zagreb to Rijeka cost us 105 kunas (about 520 rubles), and from Rijeka to Poreč.94 kunas (about 470 rubles). It is interesting that you can get from one city to another by different routes and buses of different companies, the prices of which are very noticeably different.
When the question of souvenirs and gifts arose a few days before departure, we decided to opt for local alcohol. On the advice of friends, we bought Rakija Travarica brandy - 75 kunas (about 375 rubles) per liter and herbal liqueur "Liker Pelinkovac" - 70 kunas (about 350 rubles) per liter. Decent drinks, and local flavor is present : -)
If you are planning a trip to Istria in September, we can advise you to make it in the first half of the month. We stayed there until September 14, there were only two or three cloudy days in two weeks, but by the end of the period it became a little colder, this is especially noticeable in the evenings. A couple of days before departure, I asked about the weather forecast (you can find it at the reception) and it promised cold weather and rain.
A little about Croatians. The people are friendly, you can’t even believe that just 10 years ago they had a war. I did not notice any signs of nationalism, I could not even buy a T-shirt with the Croatian flag as a keepsake. I had to buy a T-shirt with the emblem of the University of Zagreb : -)
Attention! Duty free shop is only in the departure hall, so there is no chance to buy cheap drinks on the day of arrival! By the way, there you will have the last opportunity before departure to turn the rest of the local currency into something useful. Basically, the assortment consists of imported and Croatian alcohol, and the prices, of course, are somewhat lower than in stores.
After a short hitch, we found a lady from Lucky Travel who met us, got on the bus and our “group transfer” began. Those who stayed in hotels near Pula were more fortunate, and our trip to the Delfin hotel lasted another 3 hours. Finally, we got to the hotel, presented our voucher, which indicated that we were entitled to “1 DBL standart”, received our keys and, after wandering a little along the corridors, got to the right door. The room, of course, turned out to be modest, but we were struck not by its modest size and not by the old furniture, which apparently remembers Tito's times, but by the fact that the door, which, as we assumed, should lead to the balcony, actually led to the lawn in front of the hotel. That is, instead of a balcony, we were supposed to have a small area tiled and fenced with a decorative fence, on which a plastic table and two chairs were placed. I must say that Croatia is a very calm country, people everywhere go to sea and leave their belongings unattended, for two weeks I never heard the sound of a car alarm siren, although we also visited Zagreb. Yes, everything is great, but we, who grew up in other realities, wanted to sleep peacefully at night, opening the door to the balcony, and not to the street (albeit a Croatian street! ). In the evening, with the help of our guide, we found out that the “1 DBL standart” indicated in our voucher does not imply a balcony in the room. If we want to get a room with a balcony and a view of the hotel courtyard, we need to pay extra 6 EUR for each day, for a room with a balcony and a view of the sea, an additional charge of 8 EUR per day. We chose the second option, left 104 UER and moved into room E499 with a great sea view. If we were less fortunate, and the room was a couple of floors lower (we lived on the fifth floor), then we only had a view towards the sea, since the whole hotel is surrounded by fairly tall pine trees.
Try to find out in Russia what number you are offered! This hotel has rooms with sea view, pine tree view, hotel courtyard view, concrete wall view and street access directly from the room. Feel the difference!
To communicate with the hotel staff, you will need more German or Italian, most of them speak fluently, English is already worse, and it’s better not to remember Russian at all, although Croatian is a bit similar to it. For example, “praise” in Croatian means “thank you”. There were no problems with the staff at the hotel. The room is cleaned every day, the towel is changed only after you yourself recognize it as dirty and throw it on the floor. Such rules and about them you will be informed by information in the room in German, English and Italian : -)
There are no payphones in the hotel, but the nearest one is literally a couple of minutes walk from it, next to the road leading to the hotel. For us to communicate with relatives, the daily exchange of SMS was quite enough. Don't forget to turn on roaming if you take your mobile phone with you!
For those yearning for TV on the ground floor, next to the reception, there is a room where you can watch satellite channels. You just need to catch the moment when the Bundesburgers who love watching football are no longer there : -)
The beach is very close, literally 50 meters from the hotel. The choice is either a concrete platform, with handrails like in a pool or a pebble beach. We rested on the platform, it is more spacious and a regular towel is quite enough to sit comfortably enough. You can rent a sun lounger, it costs 20 kunas (about 100 rubles) per day. Dangerous sea urchins, which are talked about so much, at least we did not see on this beach.
I highly recommend bringing fins, a mask and an air mattress. The beauty of the Adriatic, of course, cannot compete with the Red Sea, but still it is an amusing sight. Many people observe the life of the seabed for a long time, just by putting on a mask and lying on an air mattress.
In the hotel restaurant in the morning and evening buffet. The food is just excellent, breakfast was enough so that the thought of lunch simply did not appear. Everything is tasty and varied, perhaps, I was only surprised by the dislike of Croats for juices and the terrible taste of coffee from some antediluvian apparatus. Another nuance - at dinner, all drinks, up to mineral water, are for a fee and not cheap. We solved this problem by buying inexpensive young wine in the Konzum supermarket in Poreč . Poreč can be reached by bus, which stops in an hour right in front of the hotel entrance, a ticket for it costs 12 kunas (about 60 rubles) or walk along the footpath along the sea in about an hour. What do you like more - choose for yourself.
Since German and Austrian pensioners predominate among vacationers on the shore, the evening life is appropriate. There is only one night disco for the entire hotel complex, which includes Delfin. In the evenings, tourists loiter along souvenir shops or sit in cafes near hotels, listening to music performed by local bands. According to my observations, Delfin was the most advanced of the local bands, I even noticed “Should I Stay Or Should I Go” in their repertoire. Anyone else remember The Clash?
Delfin is not the most suitable place for a nudist holiday, but there is FKK-Strand literally 10 minutes away on the campsite, which is inhabited mainly by Germans. If you are not embarrassed by the neighborhood of 50-year-old German women and the involuntary attention of tourists passing along the path, literally five meters from the beach, you can sunbathe in what your mother gave birth.
We did not visit any excursions, although, of course, they were persistently offered to us. We rented a Ford Focus and explored the Lima Canal, Rovinj and Pula on our own, on the way to Zagreb we made a stop in Rijeka. We were offered a day trip to Zagreb for 60 EUR and they said something about some good shopping. Complete nonsense. We spent two days in Zagreb and managed to see very little, let alone a few hours! There is nothing special to buy in Zagreb, the prices are the same as in Russia, and if there is a seasonal sale, then you need to spend a lot of time and go around a bunch of tiny shops to find something. Time is a pity!
On September 5, the day before our arrival, The Rolling Stones performed in Zagreb... It was terribly disappointing and the only thing left was to take a picture for memory against the background of their poster : -(
You can travel around Croatia by rented car or by bus. We have tried both options. Forde's two-day trip through Rovinj, Pula, Rijeka to Zagreb cost us about 100 EUR, including rent, fuel (eurodiesel at 1 EUR per liter! ), payment for parking and travel on toll motorways and, of course, through the famous five-kilometer Uč ka tunnel ( 5062 meters). Let me remind you that this is only half the cost, because we traveled with a group and shared the costs 50/50. I do not think that there is a need to talk about the impressions left by our journey. You can’t say everything in a nutshell, and a detailed story will take too much time. I would only advise you to definitely visit Rovinj, a very beautiful old town.
In Zagreb, having struggled looking for a parking space in the narrow streets in the city center and finding out that the most affordable double room here costs about 110 EUR, we found a tourist information center on Ban Jelacic Square (this is the central square of Zagreb) and there we were offered a room in modest hotel for only 59 EUR (including breakfast! ). It took about 20 minutes to get from our hotel to the center by tram. The fare was 6.5 kunas (about 30 rubles). Tickets can be bought at Tobacco Shop tobacco shops and from the tram driver, but for some reason they are more expensive on the tram. Inside the tram there is a special device into which you need to insert a ticket and a mark about the start time of the trip will appear on it, the ticket gives the right to ride on any trams for three hours. In the two days we spent in Zagreb, we never saw the inspectors in the tram ; -)
We returned from Zagreb to Porec by bus. There is a direct flight only once a week, so I had to go through Rijeka. We did not notice any problems with tickets, all the buses were half empty. Tickets from Zagreb to Rijeka cost us 105 kunas (about 520 rubles), and from Rijeka to Poreč.94 kunas (about 470 rubles). It is interesting that you can get from one city to another by different routes and buses of different companies, the prices of which are very noticeably different.
When the question of souvenirs and gifts arose a few days before departure, we decided to opt for local alcohol. On the advice of friends, we bought Rakija Travarica brandy - 75 kunas (about 375 rubles) per liter and herbal liqueur "Liker Pelinkovac" - 70 kunas (about 350 rubles) per liter. Decent drinks, and local flavor is present : -)
If you are planning a trip to Istria in September, we can advise you to make it in the first half of the month. We stayed there until September 14, there were only two or three cloudy days in two weeks, but by the end of the period it became a little colder, this is especially noticeable in the evenings. A couple of days before departure, I asked about the weather forecast (you can find it at the reception) and it promised cold weather and rain.
A little about Croatians. The people are friendly, you can’t even believe that just 10 years ago they had a war. I did not notice any signs of nationalism, I could not even buy a T-shirt with the Croatian flag as a keepsake. I had to buy a T-shirt with the emblem of the University of Zagreb : -)
Translated automatically from Russian. View original
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OTHER REVIEWS ABOUT THE HOTEL
- uncomfortable
- Delfin For two stars - excellent. Hotel and more.
- very worthy, this is not 2 stars for you in Egypt :-)
- Good hotel
- Calm rest
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