With out a doubt it is worth doing it. The roaming charges are to high from Italy to Croatia. And in general, Croatian pricing for calls and sms is cheap compared to Italy.

Tony,

I won't be having to make too many calls, just a few. Do you have any idea how much a SIM card is in Croatia? I'm wondering if it might not be worth just spending the roaming charges on my US cell. This definitely gets a little confusing for me.

Terry, I did just this thing last year in Croatia...just added roaming to my AT&T cell phone. The charge was $5.99 for a month and I removed it when I returned. I made only a few calls so the charges were minimal.

Thanks, Gail, that's exactly what I'm going to do.

Have a great time in Montisi!

With VIP, the cost is 100 kunas and it includes not only the SIM card, but also 100 kunas in credit:

VIPme BOX

Other companies include:

T-Mobile
Tele2 - But they do not have a website in English.

Have a great time in Croatia, Terry. I am looking forward to hearing about your adventure.

Leslie

Thanks, Tony, but I'm thinking I may do better with my own company here, adding roaming like Gail did for $5.99. I am not expecting to make that many calls, just a few.

Les, thanks so much!

Terry, I've developed great interest in this thread, since deciding, tentatively, on Slovenia and Croatia next year-maybe May or June '09. I wish I could offer you great suggestions, but I, like you, am just eager to learn. I'll look forward to reading your reviews and reports from your week. Something tells me that this would be a good choice now, with the euro so high and these places only becoming more developed and "discovered" as the years go by.
Here's some thinking outloud:
We need to get there from Chicago - maybe AA to Frankfurt, then Croatian Air from there....I don't know. There may be better options.
I'll be curious about Wizzair.
I was thinking that we might spend a week in Slovenia - the Julian Alps, Lake Bled, Ljubljana, and Piran (pictured so beautifully recently in National Geog. Traveler). And head down to the Istria area of Croatia. Then maybe on down the coast. Maybe a one week rental somewhere. Maybe three weeks total.
Ann, of Hawaii, has made some great suggestions. There's really quite a lot of advice on SlowTrav now about this area, and that's wonderful. And that Croatia Traveller website is great. I just have to decide how to put it all together.
Anyway, this is all in the very beginning stages of planning, so I'll watch for your tales. And who knows, we may change our mind and head back to Provence AGAIN!
Have a great time!
Linda

Ah but I had more time, Linda, I would have loved to visit Slovenia also. It really does sound beautiful there. That will have to wait til next time, along with Istria, too.

Since there are no direct flights to Croatia from the US (as of yet), you can pretty much choose your hub for a connection. I based mine on the cheapest flight I could get to Europe, and it turned out to be London. There are many European airlines that fly into Croatia, including Ryanair and Wizzair, to name a couple. I'll let you know how Wizzair was - they're Hungarian-based, but so far, everything has been smooth.

Only about two weeks til we leave - the excitement is starting to build!

I can't remember if I posted about this before or not. But FAA officials were in Pleso Airport (Zagreb) earlier this year. There is talk that in about 2 years time there could be direct flights between the US and Pleso.

When i flew roundtrip earlier this year between Zagreb and the States, i just searched for flights and picked the cheapest. I didn't even try to book with one airline in Europe and another for trans-atlantic. That would have been too complicated for what i needed to do.

Technical question: I have looked this up on the web and still have questions. Basically, can I use the same adapter plugs in Croatia that I do in Italy? Thanks.

Jane, it looks like they use the German system, you know, the round ones which you have to buy adapters for when you are in Italy -- Here is a sales website which shows a picture and than lists the other countries which use the same system. Italy ain't one of them....

Jane,

Although I am no electricity expert, both here and in Croatia, I did find this page, where if you scroll down you can see that Italy and Croatia share the same types of plugs, the C and the F. Hope that helps.

Edited to add: Oops - I see that Diana and I were posting at the same time, and it looks like we may have conflicting information?

Looking around on this some more, if you scroll down about 1/3 of the way on this page, there is an actual diagram of what the outlets look like in Croatia, in addition to the volts and Hz.

I'm really not sure if that answers your question or not, Jane. I'm hoping maybe Tony can clarify this for all of us.

Thanks Diana and Terry and your answers explain why I got confused by looking on the web. We have just about every type of adapter made--I think--so guess I will just take both the German and the Italian type with me to be safe. Unless Tony can give us more definitive info. Maybe Ann will know. She is in Italy right now and doesn't go on line while traveling--smart woman that she is. I'll ask her when she returns.

Not conflicting, Terry. We have those round plugs with two prongs also in Italy. We normally need to use an adaptor to get them to plug in here. They are called "spina tedesca", or German plugs. All major appliances have them, even in Italy.

I don't want to confuse matters further. Jane, I think you will need to go from American plugs to German plugs (those round ones). The problem with the Italian adaptors is that they probably have three prongs, and the style C plug with Terry showed only has two holes, which is what you might find as outlets. (then again, you might find three hole German style round outlets in which case your Italian plugs will work).

I am going to go take a nap now. Plugs and Europe make me tired. I have a drawer of adaptors which is constantly growing.

Whatever you have used in Italy, will work perfectly for Croatia.

Thanks, Tony.

Thanks from me too, Tony!

A little added advice,get your plug before going as we had a problem in getting an extra one when there.

Greetings from soggy Zagreb. What a beautiful town, though. Full of old world charm, and it rocks! Signing off for now at this internet caffe. Will try to check in again during our trip.

Terry, keep the info coming. It already sounds good!