Blog Hotels

2026-01-185 min readcheaphotels

Nine Dubrovnik hotels with genuinely swimmable pools, ranked on water quality, view, crowd and the honest price you pay in July versus October.

Hotel Excelsior (Ploče) — the postcard pool

The Excelsior sits on the cliff below Ploče Gate, ten minutes on foot from the Stradun, and its outdoor pool hangs directly over the Adriatic with Lokrum island filling the horizon. Water is heated to around 27°C from May to late October, and the deck is small enough that you should be down there by 9am in July if you want a lounger. Rooms with sea-facing balconies start near $520 a night in shoulder season and climb past $900 in August, which is steep but you are paying for the single most photographed swim in the city.

The catch is the crowd: the Excelsior draws cruise-passenger day guests and wedding parties, so afternoons around the bar get loud. If you are travelling with kids under ten the pool is deep with no shallow end, and the drop to the sea below the terrace is real. Book a Deluxe Sea View, not a Superior — the Superior rooms face the road and you hear scooters. Breakfast on the terrace is worth the early alarm, particularly the fresh figs in September.

Hotel Bellevue (Miramare) — the cove pool

Bellevue is built into the cliff above Miramare Bay, a fifteen-minute walk west of Pile Gate, and its outdoor pool is the most family-usable of the five-star options. A private lift drops you down to a pebble cove, so kids can alternate between pool and sea without a car. The pool itself is L-shaped, has a shaded shallow section, and never gets the cruise-day crush the Excelsior sees. Standard doubles run $380 in May and October, roughly $650 in peak July.

The building's terraced design means every room is sea-facing, which sounds like marketing until you check in and realise it is actually true. What Bellevue lacks is atmosphere — the interior is corporate-modern and the on-site restaurants are fine rather than memorable, so plan to eat in town. If you are here for a week with children and want a pool you’ll actually use twice a day, this is the pick I’d make over anything inside the walls.

Rixos Premium Dubrovnik (Lapad) — the big-pool option

Rixos opened on the Lapad peninsula in 2019 with the largest outdoor pool of any city hotel — a 30-metre lap-length rectangle with a separate kids' pool alongside. It's a twenty-minute bus ride (line 6) into the Old Town, which is the trade-off, but you get pool space that doesn’t require setting an alarm to claim. Nightly rates sit around $290 in June and $480 in August, notably cheaper than the Ploče cliff hotels.

The building itself is glass-and-concrete and has the personality of an airport lounge, but the pool deck is genuinely relaxed and the walk down to Sunset Beach takes six minutes. Half-board is worth taking here — the dinner buffet is above the usual resort standard and the à la carte options in Lapad are limited compared with Old Town. Skip the spa; it's overpriced for what you get. Best for families who want pool-first and Old Town second.

Sun Gardens Dubrovnik (Orašac) — the resort with three pools

Sun Gardens is 11km northwest of the Old Town in Orašac, and calling it a hotel undersells it — it's a self-contained resort with three outdoor pools, an indoor pool, and its own pebble beach. Family suites with kitchenettes go for around $340 a night in June, which per-head is the best value in this ranking if you’re four people. Shuttle boats run into the Old Town harbour four times daily in summer and take 25 minutes.

The main pool is heated and open April through October, the infinity pool at the adults-only section closes at 8pm for cocktail service, and the kids' pool has a small water-play structure. The honest catch is that once you’re out here you tend to stay — it's not a five-minute stroll to a bakery. If you want a week of pool-and-boat-trips with the city as a day out rather than the main event, Sun Gardens is where I’d send friends with kids.

Hotel Kompas (Lapad Bay) — the mid-price pool

Kompas faces Lapad Bay directly, has a modest outdoor pool on a raised terrace, and hits the price band a lot of travellers actually want: doubles around $210 in May, $340 in August. The pool is not enormous but it's clean, heated, and open from breakfast until 9pm. Crucially, the beach is 40 seconds from the front door, so the pool tends to be the second-choice swim and stays uncrowded.

Rooms are functional Scandinavian-modern rather than luxurious — think IKEA-ish rather than boutique — but the sea-view balconies are real balconies with two chairs and a small table. The buffet breakfast is the weak point (industrial pastries, thin coffee) so walk five minutes to a Lapad bakery instead. Best for couples on a first Dubrovnik trip who want pool access without paying Excelsior money, and who are happy in Lapad rather than inside the walls.

Villa Dubrovnik (Sveti Jakov) — the design pool

Villa Dubrovnik is a small five-star cut into the cliff below Sveti Jakov, twenty minutes on foot from Ploče Gate along a coastal path. The infinity pool is small — maybe fifteen loungers total — but the water reads as a single sheet running into the Adriatic and the view straight across to the Old Town walls is arguably better than anything from inside them. Rates open around $680 and hit $1,100 in August.

This is the pool for couples, not families: no kids' section, quiet-hour rules from 2pm, and a bar service that feels genuinely calm. The hotel's boat shuttle to the Old Town runs on request and takes six minutes. If you can only afford one splurge night in Dubrovnik, spend it here rather than the Excelsior — the design, the food at Pjerin restaurant, and the pool crowd are all a level above.

What to skip, and the honest verdict

Two hotels that market their pools hard but don’t deserve the ranking: the Grand Park Hotel in Lapad has a large pool but the deck is treeless and roasts by 11am, and the Valamar Lacroma has a pool built for volume, not quality — expect German-market coach tours in July. Both are fine, neither is worth choosing for the swim.

Overall pick: for families, Bellevue or Sun Gardens depending on whether you want walkable-to-town or full-resort. For couples, Villa Dubrovnik if budget allows, Kompas if not. For the photograph, Excelsior, once, on a shoulder-season Tuesday morning. Avoid booking any pool hotel for the first week of August — rates jump 40% for the same water, and every deck is over capacity.

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