Dubrovnik Hotels With Sea View Balconies, Ranked
Balcony overlooking the Adriatic at a Dubrovnik hotel
The 9 hotels where a private balcony over the Adriatic is guaranteed, not a €120 upgrade lottery.
How we ranked them
A sea view in Dubrovnik is a slippery promise. Half the four-stars in Lapad sell rooms labelled "sea view" that face a parking lot with a sliver of blue between two pines. We only counted hotels where the standard category — not the suite, not the top-floor upgrade — comes with a private balcony you can sit on, facing open water. That killed a lot of famous names. Villa Dubrovnik lost points for balconies that are technically French balconies on the lower floors. Rixos Premium lost points because half its "sea view" rooms overlook the pool deck. What's left is a short, honest list.
Price bands below are for a standard double in shoulder season (May, late September), which is when these hotels are actually worth booking. July and August prices double and the water below the balcony is full of tour boats until 8pm. The ranking weighs three things: whether the balcony fits two chairs and a small table, whether the view is open water or a cove, and whether the room behind it is any good. A gorgeous balcony bolted to a tired 1980s room doesn’t win.
1. Hotel Excelsior, Ploče
The Excelsior's Deluxe Sea View rooms in the historic wing have the balcony you picture when you picture Dubrovnik: wide enough for two loungers, a table, and the full frame of Lokrum and the Old Town walls a kilometre across the water. From May through late September you get sunrise straight over Lokrum and the walls turn gold at 7pm. Book the historic wing, not the newer annex — the annex balconies are narrower and angled away from the walls. Shoulder-season rates run €480-620; peak hits €900+.
The catch: you’re a 12-minute walk from Pile Gate, which sounds fine until you’ve done it four times in one day in August. There's a shuttle but it runs on hotel time, not yours. Breakfast is excellent, the spa is small but genuinely good, and the seawater pool below the terrace is the best hotel pool in the city for adults. If you want the postcard view and don’t mind paying for it, this is the answer.
2. Grand Villa Argentina, Ploče
Next door to the Excelsior and, for my money, a better room-for-money trade at €380-500 in shoulder season. The Superior Sea View rooms have proper balconies — two chairs, small table, room to move — and the angle onto the Old Town is almost identical to the Excelsior's. You lose about 10% of the frame and gain a slightly quieter property. The Argentina complex includes several restored villas on the slope, and if you’re a couple, ask for a room in Villa Orsula rather than the main building. Smaller, calmer, same view.
The honest downside is that the property feels stitched together because it is — five villas connected by paths and lifts up the cliff. First morning you’ll take a wrong turn to breakfast. After that it's charming. The seawater bathing area is shared with the Excelsior next door and gets crowded by 10am in July. Come in May or late September and you’ll swim off the ladder alone at 8am with the walls glowing across the bay.
3. Hotel More, Lapad
More sits on the rocks at the tip of Lapad peninsula, and its Superior Sea View rooms all have balconies over the water — no road, no promenade, just rock and Adriatic. Views are west into the open sea rather than at the Old Town, which means better sunsets and worse Instagram. Balconies are on the small side, one lounger plus one chair, but they hang directly over water deep enough to swim in. Rates run €280-380 in shoulder, which is the best price on this list for a genuine open-sea balcony.
The cave bar carved into the rock below the hotel is a real thing, not a marketing gimmick, and it's open to guests without a queue. The catch is location: Lapad tip is a 25-minute walk or a 10-minute bus (number 6) from the Old Town. If you plan to be in and out of the walls three times a day, this will annoy you. If you want to swim off the rocks before breakfast and eat dinner at the hotel, it's ideal.
4. Kazbek Hotel, Gruž
The wildcard. Kazbek is a 16th-century summer villa on Gruž bay with only 13 rooms, five of which face the water with proper balconies. The view is across the working harbour to the far shore — ferries, sailing boats, occasional cruise ship — which some travellers love and some find industrial. I love it. Rates are €260-340 in shoulder for the sea-view rooms, and breakfast on the waterside terrace is one of the best mornings you can have in Dubrovnik.
It's a small, quiet, adults-oriented property with a lap pool in the garden and no spa, no gym, no lobby bar to speak of. That's the point. You’re 20 minutes on foot from Pile, or four minutes in a taxi. The Gruž Saturday morning market is a 10-minute walk and worth planning around. If you want a hotel that feels like a house rather than a resort, this is the one on the list that most delivers.
5. Hotel Bellevue, Boninovo
Built into the cliff above Miramare Bay, the Bellevue's Sea View rooms all have balconies facing west over open water and its own pebble cove 90 metres below. Rooms are more contemporary than the Excelsior's — glass, pale wood, a slightly corporate feel — but the balconies are big and the sunsets are the best on this list because you’re looking straight into them. Shoulder-season rates €340-460. The lift down to the private beach is a genuine feature; you can be in the sea five minutes after leaving your room.
Location is the honest weakness. Boninovo is a residential neighbourhood between Pile and Lapad, well served by buses but not walkable to anywhere interesting for dinner besides the hotel itself. If you want to walk out and stumble into a wine bar, book elsewhere. If you want a balcony, a pool, a private cove and a 10-minute cab to the Old Town when you feel like it, the Bellevue is the calmest option in this bracket.
6-9. The rest, briefly
6. Hotel Dubrovnik Palace, Lapad tip. Big resort, 300+ rooms, but Superior Sea View category all have real balconies facing west into open Adriatic and Elafiti islands. Sunsets exceptional. Rates €260-360 shoulder. Catch: it's a resort, with resort noise and resort breakfast queues. 7. Rixos Premium Dubrovnik, Lapad tip. Deluxe Sea View rooms have balconies but many face the pool complex, not open sea — insist on "open sea view" in writing. Rates €300-420. 8. Importanne Resort Neptun, Lapad. Older four-star, but sea-view rooms with balconies at €180-260 shoulder are the best pure value on this list if you don’t mind dated interiors.
9. Hotel Kompas, Lapad bay. Curved beachfront block; sea-view rooms face Lapad Bay and the swimming area. Balconies are small but real, and you’re 30 seconds from a swim. €200-290 shoulder. Skip: Hotel Lero ("sea view" means glimpse), Valamar Lacroma (park view sold as sea view on lower floors), and any "partial sea view" category anywhere in the city — it means you can see water if you lean over the railing. Book only the categories named above, in writing, or you’ll arrive to a courtyard.
Before you book
What people ask before booking Pile.
"Sea side" means the room is on the sea-facing side of the building but may not have a balcony, and often includes rooms angled sideways with limited view. "Sea view" implies a direct view but not always a balcony. Only "sea view with balcony" or "deluxe sea view" categories guarantee both, and even then confirm in writing.
Correct. Almost no hotel inside the walls has a sea-facing balcony — the city was built to hold the sea out, not frame it. The Pucić Palace has one restaurant terrace with a partial harbour view, but rooms face inner streets or the Rector's Palace, not the Adriatic.
In shoulder season, yes — you’ll actually use it at breakfast, sunset and after dinner, and the temperature is right for sitting outside. In July and August, the balcony gets brutal sun until 6pm and the tour-boat traffic is constant until dark, so the premium buys you less than it looks.
