Yes, yes, I know, it's such an old and overused joke.
But, for Croatian islands that fact means a lot. It means that the ferry and catamaran schedules are changing, to their "out-of-season" status. Korčula has seen a lot of improvement in the past years, regarding the number of various catamaran (just foot passengers) and ferry (foot passengers and cars) lines coming to the island, but that is mostly related to the warmer time of the year and the tourist season.
After October 1st, things change. A lot. Some smaller changes to the schedules happened even before that date, in September, but Oct 1 is the day for which you need to be prepared, if you're an islander in Croatia - or just visiting. One could debate now what the chances are for making the tourist season much longer, if the ways to get on and off the island get so drastically reduced at the end of September, and are not returned until early June, but that's a whole different story.
So, what will be available in terms of getting to and from Korčula in the coming months.
First of all, a table for Korčula town:
Departing early morning and coming back to Korčula in the afternoon, Split - Hvar - Korčula will be here all year round.
Split - Milna - Hvar - Korčula - Pomena - Dubrovnik will operate until late October, but be careful, in the last few weeks of October - not every day.
Split - Bol - Hvar - Korčula - Dubrovnik, midday Split - Hvar - Korčula and Split - Bol - Makarska - Korčula - Sobra - Dubrovnik will not be back until next season.
Orebić - Dominče ferry will also be operating with a reduced frequency, compared to the summer months:
(the departures marked with asterisk will not take place on Christmas, Boxing day and New Year's Day)
Passenger boat Korčula - Orebić, operating from the town centre, will also operate much less frequently:
One asterisk means that it's a connection to the cat for Split, so if that is cancelled because of the weather, the passenger boat will also be cancelled.
Two asterisks mean that the connection doesn't operate on the Saturdays. On Sundays, Korčula - Orebić goes at noon, comes back at 12:20, and at 19:30, coming back at 19:50 - but that's also cancelled if the connection to Split is cancelled. Good luck getting from Orebić to Korčula and back on weekends if the cat to Split is cancelled!
As for Vela Luka, things are not so bad, and most lines actually continue to operate:
Let me just point out the fact that the schedule for ferry line 604 is a red-hot mess, which I don't understand at all (and I just created this table!), so if you need to go to Vela Luka from Split by car out of season, please check the schedule (link to the .pdf) VERY CAREFULLY.
In almost all of the instances when it appears, Sunday means Sundays + public holidays in Croatia, so beware of that as well.
