Great stay at Rixos Premium Dubrovnik

My turn to review this great hotel after EcotoneHR and Claus4321. I am very late for this review since my stay was early May, but I have been very busy since that.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, one of the rare positive consequence of it was to put an end (or at least temporarily) to uncontrolled mass tourism and that it was the opportunity to see again some of the nicest places without the hordes coming of those giant cruise ships. In Europe, Santorini, Venice and Dubrovnik come to my mind. The first two were done (even twice for Santorini :)), and I was missing Dubrovnik where I had been only once and this was 15 years ago...

Croatia (and Montenegro) were already accepting vaccinated visitors without need for PCR test, so I decided to enjoy this new freedom !

I stayed 4 nights at the Rixos DBV and it was as nice as described by previous reviewers. It’s a big resort with a lot of rooms and I have to say I am not sure I would love to stay there when full or close to, because some areas like the pools will definitely be too crowded for my taste. During my stay, it was rather the opposite : a bit too empty, but the experience was good. I think the occupancy was no more than 20% (this was early May). There was still some renovations going on in some parts of the resort, but nothing disturbing.

Check in was relatively quick and they offered a glass of sparkling wine. I was thanked for being a Diamond member. I booked a Superior room with sea view and was upgraded to Deluxe with sea view. Unfortunately, this hotel is not part of the SNU program ( I would have loved to use some of the many SNU sitting in my account and that I am struggling to use with all the hotels in exception + Covid travel restrictions).

Two drink vouchers were given. All the explanations about the numerous services of the hotel were given and I was escorted to the room. I will not re-explain all of them as it has been covered already in previous reviews.

The front desk area:

Other common parts :

The room was certainly very nice and large and has a huge terrace/sun deck. The view was really stunning.

However, the following remarks/criticism could be made:

• the bathroom part is too large relatively to the bedroom part. In practice, the 2 armchairs that are ahead of the bed are almost touching the windows. 
• The TV that is placed in front of the bed is blocking the sea view if you are lying on the bed
• on such a large sun deck, I would have expected some loungers
• the privacy aspects on the deck was not as “bad” as in EcotoneHR review with the Superior room, but you don’t have full privacy.
• No espresso machine

Those are 1st work problems of course, and after the bad period we have all been through, I was so happy to be there and I really could not care less ;)

There was a fruit platter and some sweets /cakes were regularly put in room every day. There was a turndown service every evening with some chocolates placed on the bed sides. If you need to work, there is a convenient long desk.

There are several restaurants and they have already been described in previous reviews. The main restaurant is where you have breakfast (full buffet, self-service : you have to wear gloves that they give you at the entrance but then you don’t know what to do with the used gloves). The buffet offers a very marge choice of cold and warm items. There is also a dinner buffet at this restaurant. It is proposing both indoor and outdoor seatings. I have to say that the view when having breakfast was not bad at all !!

Just above the main restaurant you have also a bar and Japanese restaurant. Nice terrace to enjoy a drink, notably the one with the drink voucher. They serve also snacks and salads, sandwiches there.

The lower floor gives you access to the 2 pools (one indoor and one outdoors), the sea access and the Spa. As we were still early in the season, the pool water (outdoor) and the sea were very cold.

If you want to explore the old town of Dubrovnik, it’s only a 15 min walk, going down the hill to go and up to return (but nothing bad !). Nice view on the hotel bay during the wal to downtown.

In case you’re tired for the return, there are several bus lines that drive you in 5 min from the west gate to up the hill close to the hotel. You can buy the Dubrovnik card at the reception of the hotel (highly recommended) as it gives you free entry to most major sites + some bus tickets.

At the same floor as the main restaurant, there is a SIXT rental car station. Very convenient to rent a car for the day to go to Montenegro/world heritage Kotor area (the border is just 40 km away). Highly recommended.

Overall, I had a great stay there in this very nice resort. The staff was very kind and helpful. As said in introduction, I would tend to avoid July/August as it is for sure too crowded and “factory-like” resort, but in low season, it’s a heaven. 

And I take the opportunity to thank EcotoneHR for the advices he kindly provided me before and during my stay in beautiful Croatia :)