My experience of chartering in Croatia pretty much reflects the stories in this thread. While lucky enough to have not needed any clearing or customs, there is a feeling that you are being ambushed by various bodies, especially the Natural Parks.
Mooring fees, marina fees, and food are all escalating significantly making Croatia a fairly expensive destination.
We sailed into Paradur on the island of Lestovo. Mooring fees at the Hotel’s marina were 300 Kuna, not cheap but worth the trip. Were “ambushed” by a couple of Rangers dressed in conservation green uniforms demanding a payment of 150 Kuna for visiting the Nature Reserve. We explained that we would not be visiting the Park, only to be informed that we were in it and had to pay 150 Kuna per day for the privilege. This felt like an ambush because nowhere in the research we used, online and offline, to pick the destination was there any mention of a daily fee.
This creeping charging environment is unfortunate. It taints our experience and is putting many enthusiastic sailors off Croatia….and their spending goes elsewhere.

Another bay with buoys where they charge/tried to charge 50% more for a catamaran.

At the bay (43°43’01.5″N 15°46’11.8″E) in the south of the Tijat island the money collector asked first for 30KN per meter for my catamaran. With negotiations I got it down to 20KN per meter; price for mono-hulls. The money collector was a nice and friendly person and claimed that he is only doing his job.

The restaurant at the end of the bay has a great design and looks good. However, food is very bad and very expensive. 600KN per kilogram class A fish is the most expensive, I have seen so far. 400KN per kilogram is already a on the expensive side.

On a side note, we have never had a problem with any officials and find the people very friendly, this has been our experience allover from Spain to Greece.

Split harbor with southerly winds and waves is very insecure. We left again after 30 min. This at 8bft wind, rain and approaching night because we felt safer outside than along the “west coast” called part of the harbor.

The ACI Marina Split was fully occupied, thus we sailed to Trogir and stayed in the ACI Marina there. Nice and friendly staff.

Losing will always for me be a beautiful island with interesting bays and places to visit. However, I will never try and enter the city harbor of Mali Losinj again (located in the center of the town). (N44.533013, E14.467355)

Reason – In August 2017 I wanted to enter this harbor for the 3rd time in 2017, always with about 4-8 people on board. This time they refused me and many other sailboats a berth. The reason we got from the staff and their “boss” (I talked with him several times in 2017, thus knew who he was) were that we didn’t have a length of 25m or more. I and my crew did not believe what we heard.

My boat is a 43.5 ft catamaran and there were 3-4 places for a catamaran open and about 10 monohulls.

There was a pretty strong thunderstorm approaching and we were lucky to get the last berth in (private) “Marina Losinj on the E side of the bay just beside the refueling station. We were pretty lucky because many boats had to get out of the bay before the storm set in.

This “Marina Losinj” is a bit away from the town but has a nice restaurant on the second floor, good food at reasonable prices, and great views over the bay.

We checked in and out of Croatia through Cavtat. Officials were very cordial. The night we arrived, it was evening and although port police was open, the immigration office was closed. We had anchored in the bay just north of the bay where immigration has its quay because the quay was full with other boats. Port police asked us to return to their bay, but we explained that we were securely anchored in the adjacent bay, and that reanchoring in the unfamiliar harbor (where winds were picking up) after dark put us at risk. They said “in that case, be sure you are on the dock here before immigration opens in the morning” – 8am. We sailed over at first light, brought our boat to the quay, and were waiting at immigration when they opened and all was fine.
Note, weather and winds can whip up fast and furiously in these bays. We saw it go from no wind to 35+ knots – with boats dragging anchor – in a heartbeat!

We had read many negative comments about cruising in Croatia but we thought we would give it a try this season.We checked in a Cavtat, checked out at Rovinj for a week long visit to Venice and checked back into Croatia in Novigrad and we must say we didn’t have any issues with either the Port Police or Harbour masters. On the contrary we found them to be helpful and fairly efficient. So we have no complaints. We have found there are probably too many mooring fields where you need to pay if staying overnight and the charges in the national parks could be higher than other countries but on the other hand they are cheaper than Sardinia and the marinas are generally cheaper than the west coast of Italy and Sicily. The costs to enter Croatia are easily found on the web and it you consider the cruising permit costs too high then don’t come. We have found the cruising areas in Croatia to be very good with lots of free, calm anchorages with clear water.

Yes, Croatian boarder authorities could be unfriendly as any other EU boarder authority when you show disrespect. I guess in your own countries you are prized for non-following/disobeying border control rules and regulations.

My wife and I spent a couple of weeks cruising Croatia this summer, our experience wasn’t much different to the above. The Croatian police used our AIS information to show that we had arrived at 0650 and then didn’t check in for a couple of hours, consequently they fined us, you can find the whole story here……http://goo.gl/s3vRGw (not sure if I can post a link), needless to say, they were rude, unhelpful and mostly keen to make some cash from a fine. It’s a lovely country with some lovely quiet islands, but the attitude of the authorities was terrible! So in summary, the cruising permit is expensive, the Sojourn tax is expensive, the marinas are expensive, you get charged for anchoring if you are within 150 meters of a mooring field and the authorities are horrible. It’s a good job the islands are beautiful!!

I sailed several years in Croatia and I have to admit, that the landscape & islands are really lovely. But I have to agree with what Manana and Sue report…
Prices for annual berthing went up 20-30% (!) each year and so did everything else in the coastal region. I encountered often the same with officials, I met nice ones too, but very rare. One has to understand, that if you do not give them the feeling to subdue the get very angry and a harmless situation gets out of control quickly.
I decided to leave, when I had to pay for being on anchor in Vis, but not in the main harbour are, but a little bay offside – in late October! They even did not take the garbage with them, and when I asked for document the 2 men became angry and yes, I was scared and my only goal was to avoid troubles.
Although I found also some friends there, of course, and I know some good service people there, I will not return. Once in Greece or Italy there is no need to return. Everywhere else it’s much more professional, helpful, the food is better, the olive oil, the wine and the summers are longer, and there are less overcrowded and loud charterboats anyway.
There’s a saying meanwhlie: “In Croatia they take the money before they take your line”. To sad. Because the area is so nice.

Posted on behalf of a regular contributor to noonsite, who prefers to remains anonymous:

We have been cruising Croatia this summer, cleared in and paid all taxes at Cavtat, however, we slipped across to Venice for a forthnight without clearing out thinking nobody would notice, as we were coming back to Croatia and our cruising permit was valid for six months, in anyway, on our return to Croatia we arrived back to Veruda 01.30 and dropped anchor for the night.
We left the anchorage 10.00 on passage south to Mali Losenj, two hours out we were arrested at sea by police patrol boat and ordered back to Pula, fined €1070 for not clearing out (€530 per person on board) they had us tracked by AIS, showed us a photocopy of our track out and back, they check every vessel leaving and entering their territorial waters that comes up on AIS.
I met another skipper who came out of Boka Kator on passage to Italy with four charter clients, he went straight to Vis to clear customs, got fined €2650 for not going to Cavtat, which was his first port of entry, again, the AIS was used as evidence to screw him.
They also watch anchorages close to ports of entry to screw any vessels who may have gone on anchor late at night or stopped off for lunch etc, they are not nice people to deal with.