Private Charter from Split: What You Can Actually Change

Almost nobody opens a message with "can we change the route". They ask whether private is worth the money. Underneath that, nine times out of ten, is something far more specific: a grandmother who cannot do four swim stops, a toddler who naps at one, a group that wants two hours in Hvar rather than forty minutes, a birthday that needs to be in a quiet bay and not on a beach with three hundred people.

So this is not an article about whether private is worth it. We wrote that one already and the short answer is that it turns economic around eight people. This is the other article: the one that says exactly which parts of a day are yours to move, which parts are fixed by something bigger than us, and where the line sits.

Everything below is how we actually run it, not a brochure promise. Where something is genuinely not negotiable we say so and explain why, because a private charter sold on a promise the sea will not keep is worse than a group ticket.

The group boat leaves at a fixed hour because eleven other people planned their morning around it. On a private charter the departure is a conversation.

The honest advice is still to leave early. Between 16 June and 15 September we push the Blue Cave day to a 07:00 start, and outside that window 07:45, because the light inside the cave is a function of where the sun is and the queue at Biševo is a function of how many boats got there first. Leaving at nine feels civilised and costs you the cave at its best.

But early is advice, not a rule. We have run private days that started at ten because the group flew in at two in the morning, and days that started at six because the guests wanted Stiniva to themselves. On a charter that does not include the Blue Cave, the start time genuinely does not matter much, and you should sleep.

A private day is built around a range, not a fixed line. The boat has a fuel range and the day has daylight, and inside those two limits the order and the choice of stops is yours.

What that means in practice: on the Blue Cave day, Stiniva, Budikovac, Hvar and the cove near Milna are the usual four stops after the cave, and any of them can be dropped for more time somewhere else. Groups that love snorkelling trade Hvar town for a second lagoon. Groups with small children trade Stiniva, which is a rocky scramble, for a sand-bottomed bay. Groups who came for lunch keep Hvar and cut a swim.

What it does not mean is a different sea. Vis is a two hour run from Split in good conditions. Adding Korčula to a Blue Cave day is not a route change, it is a different holiday, and a skipper who says yes to it is either not going to do it or is going to spend your whole day at the throttle.

This is the change that guests notice most and ask about least. On a group tour the stop lengths are fixed because twelve people have to be back aboard together: forty five minutes in the cove, two hours in Hvar, and the boat leaves.

On a private charter every one of those numbers is a suggestion. If the water at Budikovac is glass and nobody wants to get out, you stay. If Hvar in August is hot and loud and your group has seen enough after fifty minutes, you go. The skipper is watching the total, not the segments, and as long as the day ends when it needs to end the distribution is yours.

The one place this bites is the last stop. A day that overruns in the morning gets taken out of the afternoon, and the afternoon is usually the quiet cove that people remember best. If you want to linger somewhere, linger early.

The Blue Cave is the one part of the day that no operator in Split controls, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.

The cave sits on Biševo, a small island off Vis, and entry is run by a local concession. You do not go in on our boat. You transfer into a small wooden barque at the mouth, twelve at a time, and a local guide takes you through an opening low enough that everybody ducks. The entry fee is paid there, in cash, per person, and it is not included in any tour price in Split, ours included.

That means three things a private charter cannot change. It cannot skip the queue, because the queue is a numbered system run by somebody else. It cannot take you in outside the operating hours. And it cannot open the cave when the swell at the entrance is too big for the barques, which happens on a handful of days each season and is decided at Biševo, not in Split.

What a private charter can do is get you there early, which is the only lever that exists, and it is a real one. The difference between arriving at nine and arriving at eleven in August is often an hour of your day spent floating in a line of boats.

The other fixed thing is the weather, and specifically the wind. The Adriatic has named winds because they behave differently enough to deserve names, and the one that closes the open crossing to Vis is a strong jugo from the south east.

When the forecast says the crossing is unsafe or simply unpleasant, we do not run it. We either move your day to another date, which costs you nothing, or run a sheltered route in the channel between Brač, Šolta and Trogir, which stays comfortable in conditions that make the open water miserable.

A private charter gives you one advantage here that a group booking does not: your day is not competing with eleven other calendars. Moving a private charter to the next good day is a message, not a negotiation.

Music is yours. Bring your phone, the boat pairs, and the volume is a group decision rather than a policy.

Food is yours in the sense that you can bring whatever you like aboard, and ours in the sense that we will tell you honestly where a lunch stop is worth the time. Some groups load a cooler in Split and never eat ashore. Some plan the whole day around a konoba table.

The meeting point is negotiable in a way it is not on a group tour. The standard is the Split Sign on the Riva, the big letters on the waterfront, because everybody can find it. On a private charter, tell us where you are staying and we will meet you at the nearest marina or pier we can reach, which for a family with a pushchair and a cool bag is worth more than it sounds.

What is not yours to change is the safety kit, the passenger count, and the skipper. Twelve is the number, the lifejackets come out when the skipper says so, and the boat does not go where the skipper says it should not.

The group Blue Cave day is €110 per person. The private version of the same day is €1,200 for the boat, up to twelve guests.

At eight people the private boat is €150 each, which is €40 more per head than the group ticket. At ten it is €120 each. At twelve it is €100 each, which is less than the group price, and you have the boat to yourselves.

So the break-even is around ten, and past ten the private charter is simply the cheaper product as well as the better one. Below eight you are paying a real premium for privacy, which is a perfectly good thing to pay for, but it should be a decision rather than a surprise.

The other two charters run on the same shape. Hvar, the Pakleni, Brač and Šolta is €1,100 for the boat. The Blue Lagoon, Šolta, Trogir and Brač day is €1,000. Both take up to twelve, and the cave entry fee does not apply because neither goes to Biševo.

Send us three things and the day plans itself: how many of you there are, roughly when, and the one thing the day has to do. That last one is the useful part. "Our daughter turns thirty" and "my father cannot climb" produce completely different itineraries, and both are more useful than a list of place names.

We will come back with a route, a start time and a total, and then you change it. Nothing about a private day is fixed until the morning it runs, and even then the skipper will move a stop if the sea suggests it.

Deposit is 15% to hold the date. The balance is settled on the day. If the weather turns, you reschedule at no cost, and if there is no other date that works, you are not out of pocket.