Blue cave tours during Covid 19

How has the "New Normal" changed the Split's most sought after tour?

To be honest – not that much. If anything, it has made it better for the most of guests.

Ongoing Covid19 pandemic influences almost every business in the world, but tourism/travel has taken one of the biggest blows amongst all.
Travelling is heavily restricted, especially between countries, let alone between continents.
Some people have lost their jobs, some have spent their savings, while some are hesitant to travel even if they haven’t been as affected by the aforementioned reasons.
So-called “Covid19 passports” – demanding passengers to get vaccinated in order to visit other countries – are going to lower the number of visitors, too.
All of that is going to create fewer crowds and jams while visiting the Blue cave and other attractive locations on Croatian islands.

Furthermore, the official government company “Nautical center Komiza” – that rules and manages the Blue cave itself – has made a decision to set a lower limit for how many guests are allowed to embark on one of their boats in order to enter the Blue cave at once – making it even safer and less crowded.
* To explain – every boating company brings guests on their own boats from Split (Trogir, Hvar, Brač, Omiš, etc) to the island of Biševo, where they are taken (just around the corner, a 3 minutes boat ride) into the cave itself on “Nautical center” boats with their certified skippers/guides.
That decision also makes it virtually impossible for our guests to mix with other visitors – only the guests from our boat get to be on the small boat taking them for a Blue cave sightseeing – other companies’ guests have to get on another boat.

Fewer tourists in Split and adjacent areas would also mean fewer boats doing tours – resulting in less traffic and a more enjoyable day without too many boats in various bays, beaches, and Lagunas (depending on where your chosen tour agency takes you throughout the day).

The downside – for boating/tour companies – of having fewer visitors is, simply, less work and less revenue.
A lot of colleagues/competitors have decided to lower the price of this not-so-cheap tour.
But, that also means lower quality, as expected.
99% of tour rates do not include anything more than a boat ride, a bottle of water, and the Blue cave entrance fee (some even exclude that, in order to lower the price further, to make them more appealing at first glance).
Another not-so-good issue is overbooking/overcrowding of the tour boats.
For example – there are a few boats similar to our Saso Mange and Azor Ahai – boats big enough to accommodate more than the legal limit of 12 passengers.
And they do so, trying to compensate for the lower price (more people on the boat equals more income).
That creates a few problems:
– Legal issue – that’s against the law and those boats often get pulled over by the Marine police, making the tour late, guests nervous and uncomfortable.
– A safety hazard – all of the boats have insurance and safety equipment for 12 passengers. If anything happens – problems all around!
– Tour quality – more people on the boat mean more “Nautical center” boats have to be used for a single company’s guests to be taken into the Blue cave, making everybody late or, if they are not enough available boats,  making the rest of the group waiting for the previous ones to get back.
– Health issue – more strangers on the boat mean a greater chance of someone being infected by a virus.

On the other hand, some have even tried introducing the lunch included in the price – for a lower rate than ours.
Calling the tour exactly the same as ours – DeLuxe Blue cave tour – while having non-luxurious boats, including nothing but water beside the lunch and – most importantly – organizing limited food choices like chicken breasts and low-grade fish, while flashing photos of lobsters and shrimps.
Not cool.

But, there are solutions, as for anything else. 🙂
Last year, during the 1st season “messed up” by the now infamous virus outbreak, there was a noticeable increase in private tours bookings.
And that’s quite understandable – families, groups of friends, etc. chose to stick to themselves.
Minimizing the contact with unknown people while maximizing their day’s worth – having the boats just for themselves, commanding the timetable and the itinerary.
The results and feedbacks were tremendous, as clearly seen here.
As notorious as we are for highly valuing our service by never lowering our rates, we have adjusted those – so the price for a private tour was subjected to the number of participants.
And that was the best thing possible for our guests.
We’ve even introduced extra items and amenities to make the tour even better if that’s possible, given the average rating is 99/100 😀

The best part is – you pay AFTER THE TOUR IF YOU’RE HAPPY WITH THE SERVICE.
Stay safe.