Ibiza — The Best Clubbing Experience Ever
What happens when 4 Laurier University students travel to the party island of Ibiza? Two words: great times. If you’ve ever heard that Ibiza holds the biggest, most extravagant clubs in the world then you’ve been told correctly. Ibiza is by far the wildest party city I’ve ever travelled to (and likely ever will).
When you first enter Ibiza, the island looks like any other tropical destination; beautiful palms and luscious plants are plentiful as you exit the airport. As you make your way toward Ibiza Town (or Vila as the locals call it), building density increases rapidly and with it comes the inescapable sound of music.
House music is such a staple to the inhabitants of Ibiza that you will never not hear it playing. For all hours of the day, whenever you’re outdoors, club beats are always audible. Beaches, shops, streets, venues — they all play these beats. There never truly was a point during my visit where I couldn’t at least faintly hear music when outside; this is known as “the sound of Ibiza”.
After making ourselves acquainted with the surrounding buildings, shops and hotel, we quickly found ourselves plopped on the shore taking in the sun. As we lay there discussing what our first club of choice would be, a promoter approached us and gave us wrist bands that allowed free entry before 1:00 a.m. to one of the most highly-acclaimed clubs in the world — Space. We eagerly grabbed the wristbands but couldn’t help but wonder what the catch was since clubbing in Ibiza is not known to be cheap, let alone free. In fact, on a “big night” entry alone into some of these internationally acclaimed clubs is typically €30–50 a person!
After a wonderful pre-drink, we made our way to Space just before 1 a.m. still wondering if these bracelets we randomly received on the beach were going to work. To our surprise, we were let in with no problem and before you knew it, we were dancing away with thousands of others in a club that played house music exclusively. I found listening to house music, opposed to Top 40s, extremely refreshing. It was a pleasant change of pace. I must also mention that the size of the club was incredible. Space is split into 2 giant rooms; one for casual drinking and the other a rave room (where the house music and light show plays). The rave room had a remarkably powerful audio system, phenomenal light displays and a mezzanine with multiple bars throughout — the venue made its attendants well aware how elite it was.
What was not so cool were the prices for drinks. For a standard cocktail, prices began at €15. Bottles? Over €150! It soon became very clear as to why we were allowed free entry into Space; a mere two drinks offset the lost entrance fee. I was pretty peeved about the prices so I simply didn’t buy anything and let the effects of pre-drinking take over me for the rest of the night. Those effects were short-lived unfortunately since I sobered up about two hours in. We eventually all left at 4 a.m. knowing that tomorrow’s destination would require something a little stronger before hand.
Sleeping in until noon and heading back to the beach after brunch; we were living the standard Ibiza lifestyle. We again received free bracelets on the beach but this time to another world famous club called Amnesia. During the day, we would go to supermarkets and shops where you could find food, alcohol, clothes and souvenirs priced relatively the same as anywhere else in Europe. The biggest price disparity was only at clubs where people willingly pay 6–10 times more for the same drink you can buy in a supermarket. Taking advantage of this we all drank way too much gin and vodka before heading out, making my memory of this club hazy. What I do remember that night in Amnesia was that the club was holding its rare “milk party” where dancers strip in giant bowls of milk — you read that correctly. Talk about shock value!
On the third day, we repeated our winning formula by going to the beach at noon and obtained more free entry bracelets (what a life, eh?). We wanted to try going somewhere else this time but we simply couldn’t turn down Amnesia’s end of season foam party. It was at this point it became apparent just how well timed we made our visit to Ibiza.
Despite the island being warm year round, most clubs are only open for the summer. Arriving at the time we did in mid-September allowed us to visit clubs during the last week they were open and in celebration, these clubs were ending with extravagant nights like the milk and foam parties. It was a sort of “blow-out” to end the year. If we had booked even one week later, everything would have been closed and Ibiza would return to a relatively normal island. Knowing this, we sensed that tonight would be something extraordinary.
Amnesia this night would be far more enjoyable than the day prior— mainly because I slowed down on the pre-drinking to stay coherent — but also because it would be my first ever foam party! We entered Amnesia just before 2 a.m. and had a great time dancing to the 3 different DJs.
Amnesia is a club that maximizes typical club elements and produces the biggest DJ stages, craziest laser light shows and enough thunderous blasts of dry ice to white out the entire room. With all of these elements, the clock easily rolled to 5 a.m. but still no foam. We were getting nervous wondering if we had missed the festivities since, at least in Canada, 5 a.m. is well beyond closing time for a typical club. But Ibiza is not typical. Indeed, it took until 5:30 in the morning to start the main attraction. A man from a balcony wearing nothing but baggy, white pants appears and starts cheering on the audience. He proceeds to open 6 bottles of champagne and showers those in his proximity.
Then we count down from 5 in Spanish: cinco, cuatro, tres, dos, uno! The two gigantic cannons pictured above go off and cover the room in foam!! And this doesn’t just last a couple minutes. This is best-club-in-the-world level foam where the machines run for half an hour until there is so much foam that it literally goes up to your neck. Many times I couldn’t see or breathe because I was just submerged in a sea of bubbles.
We have two great pictures of the event but they don’t do justice for how much foam there actually ended up being. Fearing damaging the camera, we took these shots only a few minutes into the event before putting it away. Regardless, the atmosphere was amazing and I’m sure you can visualize what it was like to be here.
Once the foam stopped, that same shirtless man pulled out a fire hose and washed down the audience for a solid twenty minutes while the sprinkler system also misted upon us. Once it was all done, we waded through inches of water to exit the club and took a taxi back to our hotel, arriving around 7:00 in the morning. Yes, the time most people start their day was the time we ended ours. I still don’t know if the bracelets we received for those three nights were just because they were end of season promotions or if it was a regular occurrence but in total, each venue cost me nothing; a price you can’t beat. And THAT is my most memorable and fun club experience ever.
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This blog entry is part of the publication Robert Cekan Travels & was originally written on September 30, 2012
Robert Cekan is a young entrepreneur and proud Hamiltonian. He is the founder of the Hamilton discovery website True Resident, as well as Cekan Group, a property management group. He is also a Hamilton REALTOR® with Ambitious Realty Advisors Inc., Brokerage and an active blogger.
For all of Robert’s projects, please visit robertcekan.com
