It's quiet hard to give a star-rating for Villa Duda****. We stayed for 11 days in the red apartment with 4 persons. The appartment has 2 bedrooms on two floors and has enough space to host 5 person. The big bathroom and 2 en-suite toilets are a big plus. Every room has an AC. The view from the balcony is amazing and stunning. The city Trogir is nearby and is amazing for a daytrip. The small village Marina has everything you need for your daily life. So no worries.
Just below the house is a very busy street by day and night, so crossing the street needs attention and be prepared for some traffic-noise.
The host Toma is very humorous and helpfull. He built the house and improved the house with an elevator and lots of other features by himself - and thats where it gets tricky...
Everything is build and maintained the "croatian way". Maybe to much of that. Around the house you see wires everywhere. Heavy tools are laying around and in the driveway parks a rusty cement-mixer - from the looks, for a very long time. We liked, that Toma encouraged the guests to separate the garbage, but the garbagebins without lids are standing next to the main path to the appartement. With two dogs and uncountable cats stolling around, its a disgusting sight.
Futhermore no pathway was swept and lots of leaves and pineneedles were laying around the house and in the pool. The leavefilter of the pool was not cleaned once during our stay. When the terrace at the pool got to dirty, we swept the poolarea ourselfs just to feel comfortable sitting there. In the flowers you find cat/dog-poop and garbage.
So the surroundings are not taken care of in a way you expect it from a 4-* appartment. The pictures on the internet did not show what we saw during our stay.
The pool is seawater with added chlorine, probably because of the many leafes mentioned above.
The appartment itself is also quiet challenging. A waterboiler, which only warms water and switches off after 20 seconds, a dishwasher which wettens the cuttlery at best (we had to wash everything again by hand) and even the blunt knifes fell apart. Cuttlery and dishes are only available at the bare minimum and definetly not enough for 4 guests. When I mentioned, that our sink in the shower was not working, I overheard Toma saying to other guests, that we break everything.
This list goes on...
We heard that Toma is a great chef, but as the cathouse and outsideworkshop is next to the BBQ, we did not choose a meal from his menu. It surely smelled nice, as the chimney of the BBQ was next to our entrance.
We stayed there during high season and with a price of a 4-* appartement. In my opinion the price is not justified. But if you feel comfortable around a selfbuild house with a humorous and animalfriendly host, this might just be the right appartment for your vacations.
2025-07-31
Mahmod M. R.
Google
Nice and quiet location. I loved the sea view from the swimming pool area. The host was very generous and helpful and he is a good cook.