Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik's departures fall into groups that behave nothing alike:

• Fast catamarans to Mljet, Korčula, Lastovo and up the coast — passenger only, no vehicles, and the first to be cancelled in wind.
• The Elaphiti local ferry to Koločep, Lopud and Šipan — year-round, conventional, cheap.
• Car ferries, but not from Gruž: the Mljet vehicle crossing runs Prapratno–Sobra, on the Pelješac peninsula about an hour's drive north.
• The Italy ship to Bari — overnight, cabins, an international crossing with its own check-in rules.

Booking a catamaran and arriving with a hire car is the single most common mistake on this coast.

From our own timetable data for Gruž departures:

• Mljet (Sobra) — up to four sailings a day, first around 08:00, last about 19:10, roughly an hour each way. Worked by TP Line.
• Korčula — about three a day, 08:00 to 15:30, scheduled near 1 h 55 m though routings that call at Mljet first run longer. Krilo and TP Line both appear.
• Mljet (Pomena) — two departures, 10:30 and 15:30, about 75 minutes. This is the western end of the island, for the national park.
• Hvar — one afternoon departure at 15:30, a little over three hours.

See the Dubrovnik to Korčula and Dubrovnik to Sobra pages for the current dates.

Mljet has two catamaran calls and they serve different halves of the island. Sobra is the eastern port and the one with the frequent service and the car ferry. Pomena sits at the western tip, beside the national park lakes, and has far fewer sailings.

Booking Sobra when your accommodation is at Pomena means a bus or taxi across the island — check which name is on the ticket, not just the island.

Standard advice is to book fast catamarans online in July and August, and for Krilo that works. But it is worth knowing that TP Line's own website is not currently reachable — the domain resolves and the server answers on port 80, then returns nothing. For those sailings the practical route is an agency, a reseller, or the kiosk at the pier.

At Gruž, catamaran tickets are sold from a booth beside the berth, generally from about an hour before departure. That is fine in May and a gamble in August.

There is no single figure for Dubrovnik:

• Fast catamarans: operators ask for as little as 15 minutes, but on a peak-season sailing with an unreserved seat, 30–45 is realistic.
• Local and car ferries: around 45 minutes, longer with a vehicle.
• Bari (international): two hours, because passports are checked and vehicles are loaded.

Catamarans suspend in conditions the conventional ferries handle without comment. On the southern Dalmatian coast that usually means the bura, the dry northeasterly that arrives suddenly and blows hard. If a fixed onward connection depends on your crossing — a flight, a booked tour — the slower boat is the safer ticket, and the Elaphiti and Prapratno services keep running when the catamarans do not.

Check the operator's notices rather than the timetable: disruptions are posted separately and the schedule page is not updated.

The Elaphiti islands are the low-effort choice: an hour to Lopud, a boat back in the afternoon, no planning. Mljet via Sobra works as a day trip because of the frequency; Pomena generally does not, since two sailings leave no margin. Korčula is a long day at nearly two hours each way — pleasant, but you will spend four hours on the water.

Once you land, check what moves on the island: Mljet's park is walkable and cycle-friendly, Korčula town is compact, but Šipan and Lastovo reward a booked transfer.