Sounds like an awesome trip! Very jealous.
I would suggest not missing Croatia and I would also say see more than just Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik is great (check out the War Photo gallery) but Croatia has so much else to offer. Mljet Island is the best place in the country imo. Split is pretty nice if you are staying in Diocletians Palace (the rest of the city is meh) but it is a great place for exploring other central Dalmatian spots like Brac Island and Trogir. Plitvice national park, although a bit north of Dalmatia is a must see also, and make sure you do the long hike to ensure you get away of the hoards of people that just check out the lakes/boardwalks. We drove from Dubrovnik to Plitvice in about 8 hours making stops in a few places along the way, so the country aint that big.
I second going to Venice for Carneval.
As for Spain. Make sure you go to San Sebastian in the Basque region. If you want to see the Guggenheim in Bilbao (about an hour from San Sebastian) just drive through and maybe stop for an hour or so, the inside aint great but the building itself is phenomenal...the rest of Bilbao is not that nice. Salamanca is a nice chilled out city in North/Central Spain and I would suggest going there. Do NOT miss Sevilla or Granada, amazingly rich history and vastly different from the north of Spain due to the Moops (haha moors). Also Gibraltar is worth the visit and if you want you could head to Tangier in Morocco from there (I'll be in Morocco this summer so I cant comment on that yet). Barcelona of course is a classic city as is Madrid.
Lisboa in Portugal is worth the trip, you'll get to see the remake of the Golden Gate bridge and a really tall Jesus statue. Make sure from Lisboa you go on a day trip to Sintra....an amazing hilltop fort. I didnt really care for the south of Portugal down near Lagos although Sagres Point was cool (the westernmost part of Europe...where people used to look in awe at the edge of the world).
France, hmmm....Nice is pretty good, Monaco is really cool to see how the absolutely rich live, you can go to the casino and pay 10 Euro entry fee and minimum bet a 5 euro slot machine (and see dudes at the roulette table with sticks and tuxedos like Bond films. I also agree with a previous post, go during the Grand Prix in June...we were there a week later and it was all still set up and looked so cool. Avignon is a pretty neat city near the coast as well. Obviously Paris is worthwhile.
Agree with all the comments on Amsterdam being a great city but I would suggest seeing a lot more of the Netherlands than just that city, there is much more to the place and I feel like people who've been to just Amsterdam have not really seen the Netherlands. The Hague (Den Haag), Delft, Haarlem, Rotterdam are all worthwhile (pretty much all the cities in the Randstad). Maastricht is pretty cool down in the south, good place to head to/from luxembourg/belgium...and it has hills (shocking, I know)
Anyways, I could blab on more but I think I'll stop before this post takes up a whole page.
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