Jay m A

iTrader: (2)

Tomorrow

Paying homage to the island for the last time, well in this capacity anyway

First went in 95 - my 1st summer with disposable income, would have been earlier but was a poor student prior to then.

Anyway, myself and 6 others are on a weekender, great thing is all my mates have never been before, so I am the guide

As much as I detest the San An club 18-30 element, in interests of pure tourism for the others (and a relatively cheap night) a night in the West End will ensue. However we are staying in Ibiza Town (well just outside by Figueretas) and the Sat night will be a rather more upmarket affair

Itinery below

17.15 flight lands at Ibiza

18.30 check in appartment
19.00 walk into Ibiza town
19.30 get lost
20.00 find it
20.30 get bus to San An, hopefully see the sunset at Cafe del Mar
grab something to eat
Quick tour of San An
hit west end
miss last bus home
get cabs home (hmm or onto club more like).

Saturday

wake up. late hopefully
eat brekkie somewhere
relax by pool/find beach/look around Old Town/stay in bed/ etc delete as appropriate
eat a bit more
evening pop into harbour, find a nice bar
find nice resturant
find out best club to go to that night
goto pre club bars
point out the trannys (in a respectful manner )
have corony over drink prices
go to club
come home skint

Sunday

wake up
eat
go home
Ibiza airport for 12.30

This should hopefully give the full spectrum on nightlife on the Isle.

Any hints on things to do during Saturday daytime bearing in mind no car hire, let me know. I can't be arsed to find Atlantis again, been there, done that In the past 5 visits myself and the missus have found some lovely coves, restaurants etc all over the island, but we'll be sticking to Town and San An for this whirlwind trip.

Wish me luck, I'm a bit out of practice for the all nighters, and there's a few bagpuss's on board

BTW no funny outfits, no Brits on tour attitudes - and I'm sure the average age of the West end population will double when we arrive LOL

Then the London stag do part2 in a fortnight

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

You have to go to bora bora during the day. the beach is cool but the women there are amazing! there are some odd sights as well but it's all good. The tunes down there are class as well.

Sat night club would be Pacha. In Ibiza town so ideal and it's my fave traditional club on the island.

you mates wont know what's hit them!

I'd do 10 mins in the west end and **** off! I hate that place!

Ian Payne

Jay,

Was there for my first trip a few weeks ago and will certainly be going back. If you want to eat fancy food then try Bambuddha Grove which is about 10-15 minutes from Figuretas.

For an evening out, El Divino (just across from Pacha) was less banging and in your face for the *older chaps* of the group. Also good for spotting wasted celebs!

They're my recommendations anyway

Cheers
Ian


p.s. go to Bora Bora and you will have a sore neck looking at all the totty and plastic t*ts!!

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

we where playing spot the fake *****

DJ Dunk

iTrader: (5)

LOL So true about Bora Bora

Cafe Mambo is a must too

Jay m A

iTrader: (2)

Hmm, undecided about Sat night Pacha is so expensive (my best night ever on the island was Zenith @ Pacha 10 years ago ) and El Divino's was dead last time. But I can't remember what night it was on. All I know is I went for Norman Jay, the legend

Looking at the listings for Sat I don't know whats best. Probably Pacha.I have my man at the tobacconist/ticket booth in the harbour that will advise me on the night

Jay m A

iTrader: (2)

Purely for stag traditional values, how expensive was the strip joint Nat, and was it full of tossers, IYSWIM

Jay m A

iTrader: (2)

Review: Warning long post

Arrived Friday with no flight hassles what so ever, started on the beer at
10am Heathrow T2 as you do. Few beers on plane, had the mankiest burger ever at Barcelona airport waiting for the interconnect, landed IBZ at 6pm

Cabs to Hotel, to find its fully booked and there is an alternative a
further 15 min walk away from Ibiza town. This one was 20 mins away for
starters. Grrr. Argued the case booked in January etc but to no avail, but got
free cabs into Town from new hotel as compo. OK then. I was more annoyed
that they didn't tell me even the day before, then we could have cabbed
direct to the new hotel from the airport, to save wasting all this time when
there is a sunset to catch at Café del mar!. Anyway all was fine, checked
into hotel, ordered cabs to San An and got to Café del mar with enough time
to get the Coronas in and watch a Corona go down. All very cool, apart from
the cloud cover and the odd salmon pink teenager, usually clad in a Northern
based footy top. Luckily these were generally passing through to Mambo where Tong was doing a set live on radio1. Lots of beautiful people @ del Mar and very relaxing, with the near horizontal tunes.

Then onto the restaurants based just at the end of the West end, over
looking the bay near the taxi rank, to have a reasonably priced meal -
sophistication night was to be Saturday! Then onto the West End, since after
all stags will be stags etc so we'll have a laugh for an hour or 2.
Absolutely dead. Only went to 2 bars who were desperate to get us to buy
beer at their establishment. Every bar had 2for1 offers, with the expected
schnapp shots thrown in for good measure. So 4 shots, 2 bottles of Corona, 2
double vodka red Bulls for the princely sum of 11 Euros prevailed. After
that walked past the Egg and round to the other side of the bay, to Bar M
which is so different from the last time I was there. Rather than the open
plan slab of concrete with a few lights in the trees with a hut housing some
decks at one end, and bottled beer at the other - its now turned into a 2
storey building with terrace bar, glass walls to keep people out - with
bouncers to let you in. Not as laid back as the original Manumission
rhetoric, but the tunes were very cool as were the crowd, it was Barry lager
free and at last my young Evissa apprentices were starting to get into it.
Inevitably nobody wanted go back to the hotel, so with a quick bit of
research, we were off to Eden, the busiest club in San An that night. It was
fairly busy - tunes were good, it was generally 4 of us
on the floor pretty much all the time, where 2 looked on, with
another who'd injured his knee jumping onto the beach off the walkway at del
Mar. or so he said! There was a harder room in the corner but I didn't quite
have enough wings left from the red bull to stay in there. It started
clearing out at 4am which was a shame, we left at about 5.30.

Next day woke up at midday, not bad considering, rounded the troops and
found a nice café to have the traditional fry up. A couple wanted to watch the Man u game, but sod that, we were off to Ibiza town to have a look around.
Took us 40 mins to walk there from our base on Figuretas beach. Went around
the harbour, Dalt Vila and all the little shops, looking for a little teddy bear
with Ibiza on it for the nipper etc. Booked us in for a meal at El Forno,
the restaurant on the marina near where the ferries come in, I love the
paella there. There are better places on the island to go for seafood, but
there is none better in Town IMO. Then walked back to the hotel, even though the cab was free - you try finding one on a Saturday afternoon - even at the main taxi rank. Then into the pool for fun and games involving inflatable objects.

Evening time and SSS later we (at last) took advantage of a free cab into
Town (well it wasn't free, you had to get the receipt and hand it in at the
hotel reception where it'll be refunded). It was at this time I started
feeling really rough, not good at all. Seems like being on my feet all day,
in the heat, plus the swim proved too much for 5 hours kip and one greasy
spoon. I suddenly became very tired and a bit shakey. Typical, I had to
persuade a few of the lads to come to Ibiza, their concerns was not keeping
up with the pace - and here I am, the stag, the uber bagpuss of the group.
The best man dutifully popped into MacDonald's and got me a cheese burger,
which I couldn't bring myself to eat. Oh dear must be bad. Decided I needed
sugar and caffeine, so downed a can of coke on the way to the Pacha bar on
the corner of the harbour. Luckily it did the trick. By the time the beers
arrived I was feeling much better and knew it wasn't long until a good
paella would set me up for the evening. An hour later we were at El Forno's,
I had a great time. Good food, good wine, good company, good conversation
and a great setting - sitting in those big wicker chairs overlooking the
harbour, with El Divinos across the other side of the bay sporting those
splendidly enticing electro/plasma bluey purple lights on its terrace. The
last time I went there I went to see Norman Jay - that night was fantastic,
I was hoping Hed Kandi wouldn't let me down tonight.

Meal over and onto the bars. Walking from the restaurant back down to the
marina the pre club bars are all in a row - Rock, Base etc all looking
classy but not exactly busy. Busy enough though. In the middle of these half
a dozen bars is a little ticket shop where my tobacconist man resides. I
duly introduce myself and tell him that I'm sure he's forgotten but I bought
all my tickets from him the last time I was on the island. "Yes I remember
you" he replies. I'm sure he's being polite since it was 4 years ago, but
I'm quite happy to be polite, and act all flattered. We discuss the finer
points of ticket sales, and eventually I settle for 7 tickets for El Divinos
@ 35 euros each. Its 40 on the door apparently, and not a bad price since
earlier that day I could only haggle a guy in the market down to 37. I then
ask which of these bars is the most reasonably priced, to which he obviously
sends me to the one next to his booth. However he leaves his stall, takes me
to the bar manager to which after a short conversation he takes us to a
table where the first round is free. Good lad! If you don't ask and all
that! So we are sitting at Kube, watching all the beautiful people stroll
by, many of which accompanied by a fat, balding old rich guy. With his own
boat. Then of course came the mini mardi gras parade by the clubs, you name
it they had it - fire dancers, acrobats with those jumping shoes on, grace
Jones look-alike transvestites, dwarfs on stilts, the lot. All not wearing
very much to cater for all genders and persuasions. The tunes are good and
it’s a relaxed, cool place to be, sitting in our director chairs on the
raised patio, chatting and watching people go by. After a few rounds we
leave to go to the club, via the small corridors of the Old Town running
parallel to the harbour wall. Its packed to bursting, loads of activity,
vibrant atmosphere. I get the feeling the locals don't have much time for
the commercial bars - and by the looks of it neither do the tourists. No
doubt bar prices were cheaper too, oh well no worries, time for the club.

I chose El divinos for a few reasons really, for one the island was dead
IMO, not busy for August and Divinos is a small capacity club, hence more
likely to be full. The only other 2 of mention on a Saturday were Amnesia
which is huge (and both times I've been there I've felt I'm in a warehouse
and not a club - it really needs to be rammed to get the atmosphere) and
then there's Pacha. I love Pacha. But its so expensive - and also I've had
my best nights there when I was in my clubbing prime. I wanted to hold that
memory IYSWIM. Hed Kandi were playing at Divinos, as were Stonebridge so it
should be a good night, with house music that wouldn't be too hard for the
Evissa virgin society I was in charge of.

Back at the harbour front we boarded the club boat that ferried the clubbers
across the harbour to the venue on the other side. You can either sit inside
or outside at the rear of the boat. We chose to sit outside, mainly to watch
the totty boarding. Just as we are about to leave all the dancers that were
part of the parade steam on, sitting near us being all sassy and divaesque.
Then on pops a DJ who sits next to me, bags n'all. Bugger. Absolute
possibility of free entry and I've already bought my ticket. We had a good
chat, I challenged him about a magazine article that suggested Hed Kandi now
play "music women love to hear and men pretend to hate" to which his defence was the boss of HK has had a row with the editor or something, and his set wasn't 'fluffy'. He was on at 4am so I was soon to find out.

Entered the club at 2am and it was duely rammed. Packed to bursting, like a
student bar on freshers fortnight. Except here there was no elbows, no
attitude, no worries. And fantastic tunes. Yeah, you did get bumped a little
if stood in a corridor, but with this place its either on the floor dancing,
or on the terrace posing, and never the corrider loiter. I'd say a vast
majority were pilled up, and an even vaster majority were 25 - 35. Loads of different types though, from rich playboys, to everlasting clubbers, from beefcake gayboys, to even gayer transvestites, From amazing eyecandy podium dancers - which it seems were trying to outdo each other in the camel toe department, to what only can be descrided as a pre pubescent robochav bodypopping boy band podium dancer - WTF but its all good

A really good crowd, a really good atmosphere and not a hint of fluff on the decks! At 4am the volume of people eased off a bit, to the point where you werealmost assured a bump free passage to the bar. I really had a great time, as did the others. We were 1 man down at 5am, but the rest stayed on till about 6.30. Back at the hotel, our balcony overlooked the back of Dalt Vila, where we duly sat and watched the sun rise from behind the tower, speaking with very croaky voices.

A few hours kip later, alarms rang and we were up, packed and into a cab to
the airport.

This was a stag weekend with no drunken debauchery, no strippers, no silly
costumes, no puking, no bumping into hen do's, nothing really very stag at
all really, even when we tried - I suppose thats all waiting for me at the London do.

It was really ******* cool.

Freak

I see astraboy has a rival for the night out reports.... but you forgot the shout outs at the end

rgv_stu

lol @ freak

darts_aint_sport

Things I liked:
It was very detailed and gave you a sense of what it was like there.

What I liked less:
No pics!

What I disliked:
It was too long.

sti-04!!

Sounded like a wicked weekend mate

Jay m A

iTrader: (2)

Reviews of a review, I like it

It reads a bit orkward (not filling the whole page) since I copied and pasted from an Email I sent my clubbing partner in crime, who unfortunately couldn't be there.

Pics were taken on a disposable camera, the best man didn't trust himself with his wife's digital jobbie. So I've no idea how I can get them into digital format. Perhaps Boots or someone can do 35mm to digital?

Thanks for the comments

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

sounds good weekend

Trust me though Pacha is still as good as ever on the right night.

7 Foot

Great review. Wasn't too long at all.

Only negative is - you've made me want to be somewhere else.

astraboy

Nice review
Sounds like you had a great time
astraboy.

R1916v

Very nice, I really love the island but was unable to go this year

Usually go in September (i.e. this week ) for the closing parties etc as most of the chavs are long gone by then.

Went to a nice restaurent called Villa Mercedes last time, nice food and was really chilled, it's just up past the bus stops (or just before, I forget) as if you are walking from San An harbour roudn the coast to the Cafes rather than through the town.

And Pacha is also my fave place, good nights had there, last time ended up sitting on a table next to Roger Sanchez.