The Port of Budva handles fewer than twelve thousand cross-border ferry passengers each season, yet its morning departures carry more international travellers per sailing than any other Montenegrin coastal terminal. Service between Budva and Dubrovnik began as a seasonal charter in 2018, became year-round in 2021, and now operates six days a week from the Old Town quay — a stone jetty built during the Venetian period and reinforced with concrete piers in 1987. The crossing covers fifty-eight nautical miles, threading the southern Adriatic between Montenegro's cliff-backed riviera and the limestone archipelago that shields Dubrovnik from the open sea. Border formalities are conducted on board by Montenegrin and Croatian officers, reducing the landside queuing that has defined road crossings since both nations joined separate customs frameworks. Booking Budva to Dubrovnik ferry tickets in advance became standard practice in 2023, when walk-up capacity dropped below eighty per cent on weekend sailings. Operators limit each departure to between one hundred twenty and one hundred fifty passengers depending on vessel class, and the Port of Budva enforces a forty-five-minute pre-departure window for passport control and embarkation. The route serves both one-way transfers — travellers continuing to Split or Sarajevo — and day-trippers drawn by Dubrovnik's UNESCO-listed fortifications. Return schedules from Dubrovnik depart late afternoon, though most visitors prefer the asymmetry of a morning ferry outbound and an evening bus or private transfer home. The jetty lies sixty metres south of Budva's Citadela gate, accessible by a flagstone walkway that hugs the medieval ramparts. Passengers check in at a temporary portacabin installed each April and removed in late October; off-season departures use the adjacent marina office. Seating on board is open-plan, with indoor cabins on the lower deck and an exposed upper deck fitted with bench seating and canvas awnings. The vessel clears Sveti Nikola island within twelve minutes, then turns south-southwest toward the Prevlaka peninsula, passing the resort settlements of Bečići and Petrovac at a distance of two to three kilometres. Dolphin sightings peak in early morning crossings between May and September, particularly in the thirty-kilometre stretch approaching Croatian territorial waters. The ferry reduces speed as it enters the Elaphiti channel, where the islands of Koločep and Lopud frame the approach to Dubrovnik's Gruž harbour.