Stag Do Review – Budapest

Hey man-den readers!

A while back, myself and a small group of friends travelled to the Hungarian city of Budapest.  The purpose of this trip was to subject fellow blogger Oaf12 to copious amounts of alcohol, fun and humiliation!  You see…this was to be his stag weekend.  This blog is well overdue and I must apologise to Oaf12 as I promised I’d post this ages ago.

Truth is though, it took a while to regain my memory after this stag do and some of it is still a blur now, but here we go…

Budapest is a great place for a stag do (aka bachelor party) with its cheap beer and interesting drinking venues it’s an ideal place for such an occasion, but before I go into detail about the city I really should give a shout out to Chillisauce.

Chillisauce are a stag and hen company.  You will find a few of these companies on the internet now days, but this was the third stag do I’ve been on where Chillisauce have ensured that all us drunken lads got the most out of our weekend away.  They know their stuff and I got some much appreciated advice when I was planning the weekend.

Anyone who has organised a stag do before would know that it’s not always an easy task, especially once payment deadlines are due and you have to collect money from people.

So I’d like to say thanks to Spencer for his suggestions and to Kitti for putting up with us the whole weekend.  I’m not quite sure how she did it bless her!

So, here’s the run down on what went down in Budapest…

Day 1

The stag weekend started early and most of our group travelled to Heathrow together, this is where we meet the remainder of our group.  We had ten people in all.  A pretty good number for a stag weekend I think?

Now, on no stag-do should the stag be dressed normally, therefore Oaf12 found himself traveling to Heathrow in an all in one Pink Panther costume.  Why the Pink Panther you may ask?  Well, to be honest nothing else was going to make him stand out at Heathrow quite like a big pink onesie.

Also, it seems that a costume of a well-known character gets a lot of positive attention…and it did!

The costume didn’t cover his face so it was fine for traveling through an airport.  Oaf12 was turning plenty of heads in terminal three.  Even the guys at security had a good laugh about it and one of them even admitted to passing us on his way to work while we were waiting for a taxi that morning.  The costume was random but could be appreciated by most people traveling to Budapest with us.  A young boy and his mum even wanted a photo with the Pink Panther.

Could this kid look any more amazed?  The costume was worth it for this photo alone LOL!

The Pink Panther must have already been quite tipsy as I had insisted he have a shot of peach schnapps first thing that morning and now he was checking out the whisky at duty-free…

Although Oaf12 had no trouble at security, another member of our group got held up with one of those random routine inspections.  You know…when they go through your entire bag.  This was worth the delay though when security pulled out a planted bottle of Cock Rub from his suitcase.  To this day none of us know who put it in there!

Little did I know that Heathrow had decided to randomly place pianos all around the airport that day, and little did I know that giving Oaf12 a combination of Schnapps, whisky and a pink costume would result in him playing one of them!

I knew we should have been making our way to the gate, but Oaf12 insisted on jamming out a couple of tunes which actually sounded pretty good!  After a few samples of whisky that morning it was quite hypnotizing to watch.  He was like some kind of Pink Pied Piper (only with a piano) keeping us from straying to the gate.

When we finally boarded the plane I thought it would be a nice touch to play the Pink Panther theme music from my mobile phone as we searched for our seats.  I figured it would give the fellow BA customers a bit of pre-flight entertainment and make up for any delays that could have been caused by us and the irresistible piano skills of Oaf12.  I think they just thought we were mad though!

When we arrived in Budapest we we’re greeted by Kitti, our Chillisauce guide for the weekend.

I don’t think any of us really knew what to expect from Budapest but I assumed it would be a bit like our previous stag weekend in Tallinn and that we would be greeted with beers and music on the transfer bus from the airport.  Except in Budapest we were greeted with beers and a safety briefing!

Not to put anyone off the city or anything … but Jesus!

Experienced travellers would know the usual common sense stuff but as we all sat ourselves down on the transfer bus and obediently sipped the lager that was kindly offered, I couldn’t help but wonder if we’d landed in the wrong Country!

We were told not to get into taxis unless Kitti ordered it, to be careful when buying drinks for girls and to never enter the strip club that happened to be situated right outside our hotel!  Perhaps the beer was there to help us settle our nerves after this sobering heads up!

It was good that we were warned about these things though and on a positive note the beer they provided was pretty good!

The beer they gave us was called Arany Ászok and I think I can remember conferring with Oaf12 at the time that it was pretty good stuff.

The transfer bus dropped us off at The Swing Hotel.

This was to be our home for the weekend.  It was pretty basic I suppose but that didn’t matter.  We weren’t going to be spending much time there and when we did we’d barley be conscious due to the alcohol anyway.  The rooms had showers, beds, a toilet and even a balcony!  We had to share the balcony with several air-conditioning units but that just added to the charm of the place.

By now the all warnings about Budapest had drifted to the back of our minds and it was time to have some fun, starting with Oaf12’s brother exercising some in-decent exposure to the locals from our balcony.

We had some time to kill before Kitti was to come back and escort us on a guided bar crawl, so we decided to sample some more local beers at this western bar just down the road from the hotel.  This was a cool pub and it had those western style bar doors at the front.  It also had a small table and stools outside, so while the weather was nice we could enjoy some beers in the sun.  I seem to remember the beer being quite cheap there as well.

We were told that Oaf12 should probably get dressed in normal clothing to assure his entry into some of the clubs and bars we were to be visiting that evening.  So we let him go out in jeans and a woman’s sized One Direction t-shirt.  That was as normal as we’d let him look this weekend!

We were now getting pretty tipsy at the western bar and were enjoying the company of an old gypsy woman selling flowers on the street.

Not quite sure what she thought of us, especially when Oaf12 took some of the flowers we bought and ate them.  I don’t think she really cared.  She’d got her money after all and probably just wanted to get away from us before Oaf12 dropped dead from whatever germs were lingering on the plant she just gave him.

When Kitti arrived we were already pretty drunk, but I do remember bits of the evening.

Kitti had taken us to some really cool places.  I was really pleased to find she’d led us to a couple of ruin bars in Budapest.  Ruin bars are really popular in Budapest.  I think they started out as part of some underground bar scene but have now become more and more popular.  They are basically these club/pubs that have been converted from old buildings which were left to decay after World War II.  They don’t look like much from the outside, but inside you will find some of the most fascinating drinking venues in Europe.

They are quite artsy, each one of them quite unique places to spend an evening.  For the life of me I can’t remember the name of the bar Kitti took us to.  This may be her fault since she did order us some very strong Hungarian shots.  This happened to be the most horrendously vile drink that I’ve ever had and we all had to wash the stuff down with some cocktails after.  Still you have to try these things!

The rest of the night became a bit of a blur and despite Oaf12 sporting the One Direction t-shirt we did manage to get into every bar Kitti took us to.  It wasn’t until we got inside the clubs that Oaf12 decided he didn’t want to wear the t-shirt…

As I recall we ended up in a karaoke bar at one point, where each of us (in our intoxicated condition) thought that our screaming toneless voices sounded amazing through the microphone.

Once we’d exhausted ourselves and wrecked our vocal cords we ended up in a certain club called 4Plays.  As the name suggests this was indeed a strip club.  Most of the group had to admit defeat and head back to the Hotel at this point.  Now there were only three of us left.

This was one of the few strip clubs that Kitti had kindly suggested, and one where you don’t get locked in and made to pay silly amounts of money before they let you leave.  I could barely see at this point and as we staggered down the staircase into the club I was pleased to find that this place was actually very good!

Honestly gents…if you’re on a stag do and looking to go to this kind of venue then this is the place to go.  Beautiful women, cool music and quite a spacious club too.

I don’t think we were able to fully appreciate this place the first night, as we’d been drinking since early that morning and Oaf12 was now falling asleep in his chair.  So we soon left this little gem of a place, scratched our dizzy heads and began trying to remember which way it was to our hotel.

By the time we got back the sun was actually starting to rise again!

We now had a few hours to get some sleep before the second day of activities and more drinking!

Day 2

Instead of hearing my alarm clock that morning, I was forced out of my coma by this persistent knocking on the door.  This turned out to be Oaf12’s step brother who was rather upset.  This was because he’d separated from the group last night and tried to get back to the hotel on his own.  This had resulted in him getting all his money taken in the street and then having to spend ages in a taxi because he couldn’t remember the name of the Hotel.  Once he found the correct Hotel the cab driver apparently followed him to the room and took whatever remaining money he had stashed there.  There was little I could do about this now though.  The damage was done and it was a lesson to us all to be more careful.

It was soon time for our first activity of the day…Shooting!

Yep, I’d arranged a session at a shooting range for us all.  This was a must as we had a great time doing this in Tallinn on a previous stag do.

Kitti picked us up from the hotel again and we drove all the way to the Buda side of the city.  Budapest has two parts to it.  West of the Danube you have Buda and Pest is east of the river.

Firing a few rounds off is always a good laugh and is a popular activity on a stag weekend, especially in the eastern European countries.

We were able to get our hands on some serious weapons, including an Uzi, an Ak47 and even a Shot Gun.  Firing these can be pretty exciting and it relieved us from any tiredness or hangover we might have had from the night before.

After we had used up all our rounds and destroyed the paper targets on the range, we were then allowed to start drinking again.  Several cans of beer awaited us on a table…along with several unloaded firearms which we could hold and get a few photos off.

It was still quite early at this point and the day was yet to involve a River Cruse on the Danube and free entrance into a night club later on.

Before any of that though, we used some spare time to investigate the other bars and pubs close to our hotel.

We headed down this road called Raday Street.  It was a quite road but as we got further down we came across a few little bars with outside seating.

To be honest this wasn’t the liveliest area but it was only mid-day at this point. Regardless, Oaf12′s brother felt it to be an ideal place to demonstrate a drinking challenge…

He claimed he could drink three pints of beer in the time it took Oaf12 to down three shots.  The only rule to this game was that neither of them could touch the other person’s glass.  Curiosity got the better of us and we had to see this in action.

It turns out the trick to this game is to down the first pint as quickly as possible and then place the empty pint glass over your opponents final shot glass.  Clever aye!

This would have worked, except they served the shoots in glasses that were much too big for the pint glass to cover.  This resulted in a rowdy dispute and a glass getting smashed. It was time to move on!

We had to get Oaf12 into his new costume anyway, so after stopping at one or two more bars we headed back to the hotel for a wardrobe change.

I had decided to go with a Star Wars theme this day as it was the 4^th May.  Apparently this was Star Wars day and there was a saying…”May the 4^th be with you!”

So I had supplied each member of the group with a Storm Trooper mask and Darth Vader for myself.  Oaf12 was given a Princess Leia dress to squeeze into and was to be our slave/hostage for the rest of the day.  We also through some shackles on him too!

Kitti came to pick us up and we were taken to the Danube River.   Our boat was waiting for us and the weather was now perfect for a two-hour cruise along the river.  I had my doubts about this activity and was worried it might be too tame for us, but actually it was great to be able to chill out for a second and check out the sights.  There was also a bar on the boat so we had plenty of beer to sip on too.

A cruise on the Danube is a must for anyone who really wants to see the sights that Budapest has to offer.  You do get some great views of the Hungarian Parliament but I must admit…our attention was soon focused on something else!

The boat made a short stop and Oaf12 didn’t even need to ask me why an attractive young lady was getting on-board

A river cruise with beer, great weather and a stripper…amazing!

It was a brilliant activity.  Now it was time to visit a sports bar for some much-needed food, and to catch a football match we wanted to see.  We went to Champs, a very cool venue for any football fan.   They had different team logos printed on the floor and plenty of flat screens available to watch the game on.

Here is Oaf12 posing over his teams logo, staying as loyal to the Arsenal as he was the Star Wars theme.

Oaf12 was to remain in his fitted dress for the rest of the night, and after the game we headed back to the hotel so that the rest of us could change and get ready for the VIP nightclub entry.

I’m not quite sure what the VIP part was meant to be exactly…we had no area reserved or anything.  Perhaps it just meant that our entry was guaranteed?

Not sure what the club was called but it was ok.  Very quiet when we first got there but it started to liven up after an hour or so.  This meant by the time it was crowded we were all completely smashed!

I seem to remember us all having a great time though, leading Oaf12 around by his chains and getting photos with as many random people as possible.

Some people didn’t quite know what to make of him as you can see…

Kitti joined us at the club that night but she kept her distance most of the time.

I’m not sure why someone had a dog with them inside the club but we had to get a photo with it anyway.

We spent a good few hours in the nightclub but each of us knew it wasn’t where we wanted to end the night.  Kitti ordered us some taxis and there was now just one place we all wanted to go…4Plays!

This time armed with ten people and a pocket full of Forint we made our way toward the strip club.  When we got there, we were all pleasantly surprised to see the girl that we’d encountered earlier that day on the boat

Like with most of these places, it’s usually best to avoid buying drinks as they are not cheap.  We chilled out here for the rest of the night.   Now and then one of us would disappear for a few minutes and come back with a slightly lighter wallet but it was all a good laugh.  You may be interested to know gents…the usual look but don’t touch rule is rather relaxed at this place

The highlight of the whole weekend was yet to come though, when a member of our group went off and arranged for a not so private dance for the stag!

Here’s what happened…

Oaf 12 was promptly escorted to a kind of shower cubicle by two young ladies.  It had a see-through door so that everyone else in the club could see the show.  At first, the girls danced around him topless and Oaf12 seemed more than happy to go along with it.  Water poured down on them all as they began stripping him down to his boxers.  What Oaf12 didn’t know was that the girls had been instructed to savagely abuse him!

Before we knew it the music in the club had changed to Marilyn Manson‘s – Sweet Dreams, and the girls had switched from flirtatious dancing to stamping on Oaf12′s testicles!

One of the girls then came out and started asking if we had a belt she could use.  Well, I just can’t say no to a pretty girl so I gave her mine.  She then used it to savagely thrash Oaf12 across his bare back as he lay on the floor.  Only briefly stopping to turn him over and proceed on his chest and stomach.  It was brutal but brilliant at the same time!

I fear we may have raised the bar a bit on this stag do and if the day ever comes that Oaf12 arranges mine, I can only assume I’ll simply be dragged into an alleyway somewhere and shot in the back of the head for revenge!

Oaf12 was a good sport though, he even had a smile on his face while he dried himself and covered up his whip marked body.

We stayed at 4Playes until the early hours of the morning.  I’m not sure if this place even closes?  On the way back to the hotel we dodged a pick pocket and stopped at as many Kebab Shops as we could, confusing the staff with our slurring lingo.

Once back at the hotel, we were clearly too drunk to decide which bed was whose…

Day 3

Our last day involved a Thermal Bath Detox Session.  I figured we could all do with this after two days of solid drinking.  Budapest has many of these thermal baths scattered around the city, some dating back to the 16th century when their bath culture really started to flourish.

The largest of these spas would be the Szechenyi Thermal Baths, which is the one we went to.

This place is massive!  It consists of two large outside pools and several saunas, steam rooms and cold plunge pools inside the building.  The water temperature is different in each of the baths and they are supposed to have healing qualities for any aches and pains.  We could only hope this worked for hangovers too!

The water was indeed very relaxing.  The weather was great but I can imagine it would be quite good in the winter as well.  The water would certainly keep you warm.

The reviews I read about the spas were quite varied, especially for Szechenyi.  A lot of them would mention the complexity of the changing rooms and although Kitti had come with us, Oaf12 and I were left to work this one out for ourselves.  It was a bit complicated, especially when you’re half dead after a long night out.  It involved some kind of wrist band, which you had to hold up to a screen to get the number of your changing room.  Something like that anyway?

The other thing people seemed un-happy about was the smell.  It was fine outside in the lager pools but some of the smaller baths inside did in-fact smell very strongly of sulphur.  It was a bit gross and I don’t know how people could possibly feel relaxed floating in a pool with that stench in the room?  I only noticed it in one of the rooms though and we mostly stayed outside anyway.  There was also a huge sauna inside that was very nice and odour free.

In all, I thought the thermal baths were a good experience.  It might not be everyone’s cup of tea but it worked for us.  I’d recommend it for a good detox.  It was just what we needed at the end of the weekend.  It also gave us an opportunity to make Oaf12 wear some pink fitted swim shorts with arm bands and an inflatable Barbie ring!

Kitti denied Oaf12 his wish to wear the shorts all the way back to the hotel.  Oh well!

Once back at Swing City, we spent most of our remaining time quenching our thirst at the western bar next door.  We downed the last of our beers as the transfer bus arrived and then made our way to the airport.

Sadly it was now time for us all to leave Budapest, but spirits were raised after take-off when Oaf12′s step brother revealed the bottle of Vodka he’d boarded the plane with.  Happy days!

So folk, that pretty much concludes our Hungarian adventure.  Once again, for anyone thinking about a stag do in Budapest I’d recommend you check out Chillisauce as they can inform you about some very cool activities out there.

Hungary is part of the European Union but they are not actually a member of the Euro Zone, so instead of Euros you will want to pick yourself up some Hungarian Forint for your trip.  Beer is nice and cheap lads, so a couple of nights out isn’t too expensive.

Hope this helps anyone thinking about going to Budapest.  I had a good time and as you see so did Oaf12…