Carl-UK
Active Member
Have lurked on this forum for years and years, my first trip was in '96 just when we were just getting the first internet boom and Pete Tong was not an OAP. A big thanks to the regular posters on here and to the site admins, I don't know what I would do without the party calendar, gossip and general guidance on here, please keep posting.
I was going to say you can stop posting when I croak it in 25 years or so but in about 9 years from now my daughter will be on here planning her trip. The thought terrifies me.
Anyway, I created an account to say that after many happy years staying in Playa d'en Bossa I have switched back to San Antonio and wondered who else is thinking the same.
Its been in the making for the past two years now for many factors, the main one is that 'Bossa reminds me of what San An used to be like and most of it not for the best.
I will still be back for a couple of Bora Bora+Sankeys combo meals this year but I have thrown in the Towel on Ushuaia (almost always well over capacity - a miserable experience), Hi (incredible sound system, crap layout) and wait...what else is down here again? Before you know it you are in the Hi toilet club room, chewing your eyebrows off wondering what happened to the Terrace....
There were also other factors, continual pestering of street dealers (and in 2017 Ticket pushers were a new nuisance) as you walk down the street, fights on the beach and a general sense that the place needs to be reigned in a bit. The young lads gleefully jumping between balcony's as you walk past Jet apartments being a reminder of the old 'San An days and also a reminder of how horrific it would be to actually stay there as a hotel guest older than 19. Their hotel DJ is louder than the bars next door, I don't see this as a bad thing, I am just drawing to a conclusion that PDB ain't much different to San An anymore.
.........Made note that daughter will not be staying there under any circumstances. Young men jumping between balconies, whatever next (I never did that myself - cough)
The straw that broke the camels back, believe it or not, was being charged 28 Euros for two sub-sized Heineken's in Hi. I will openly admit, foolishly or not that I once paid over $1000 for a single non-vintage Dom P in Wet Republic (Vegas). I got decent value that day for reasons I won't bore you with here. The Hi situation was different, something had to be done so I decided to try and avoid going back there (never say never in Ibiza) and vote with my wallet. I had been going to Space for years and never minded, the first bottle of water I purchased back in '96 inside Manumission was £7.
Something larger (lager?) was obviously at work in my brain and it was - I was no longer having a good time in Playa.
It was fairly incredulous then, when I walked through San An last year on a test mission, after watching Eric Prydz play to no more than a dozen of us at Mambo, me and my missus had a most splendid evening with little more than a carrier bag full of ciders and a few Vodka chasers in tow - from Lidl*
One of my major concerns about San An was the West End - not any more.
They have actually kettled in the West End top to bottom, to the extent that if i walk across the top of the West End to the quiet pub on the corner, not a single person will bother me. Its like magic. And not only that, the walk from Mambo to said location was a joy, it was in complete contrast to Bossa which frankly, now resembles one big, expensive mess that does not deserve the high price tag it is commanding.
Curiously, whilst I was still in San An I then saw an advertisement and cheap tickets for Ocean Beach. It will be crap I said, lets give it a go my missus said and thus we went the next day.
Long story short, the music was naff, the venue was nice, the sushi was (surprisingly) top notch and ok some of the people there needed a smack in the chops but that goes for all places in Ibiza, even back in '96. I include myself in that number from time to time.
All in all I had really great time there and to top it all off, i did not feel like I had been ripped to shreds at the bar. In terms of the whole experience, it seemed more worthwhile and it got me thinking, as the sun started to set, I can walk to Mambo from here you know via that bad ass 'offy with the five different flavours of Belvedere vodka in the window (its the one as you come off the main square up the hill towards Mambo). Little things.
This year, I saw that Defected have put a weekly night on at Eden and my favourite night, Together @ Amnesia is not even in PDB. Destino, Blue Marlin are a drive but my word, those taxi drivers don't half motor it down that nice new dual-carriageway the Spanish built. I swear on at least one occasion per holiday one of these taxi drivers will break the land speed record as I look nervously around the drivers shoulder at the speedometer and twitch in the back-seat.
We had a gravel track back in '96, going at such speeds was only possible by dropping a load of gear and taking your shoes off on Formentera beach.
That was it then, off to San An Hotel hunting this year with my old, grumpy ass. Even the hotels are a shed load cheaper. Viva La San Antonio!
Playa d'en Bossa - I might be back next year, now go away and sort yourself out for 2019, like they have done with Ibiza Port - now theres a good lad.
*only joking its the supermarket near mambo with the Alladin's cave cellar full of booze. Is that Lidl? (goes off to google).
I was going to say you can stop posting when I croak it in 25 years or so but in about 9 years from now my daughter will be on here planning her trip. The thought terrifies me.
Anyway, I created an account to say that after many happy years staying in Playa d'en Bossa I have switched back to San Antonio and wondered who else is thinking the same.
Its been in the making for the past two years now for many factors, the main one is that 'Bossa reminds me of what San An used to be like and most of it not for the best.
I will still be back for a couple of Bora Bora+Sankeys combo meals this year but I have thrown in the Towel on Ushuaia (almost always well over capacity - a miserable experience), Hi (incredible sound system, crap layout) and wait...what else is down here again? Before you know it you are in the Hi toilet club room, chewing your eyebrows off wondering what happened to the Terrace....
There were also other factors, continual pestering of street dealers (and in 2017 Ticket pushers were a new nuisance) as you walk down the street, fights on the beach and a general sense that the place needs to be reigned in a bit. The young lads gleefully jumping between balcony's as you walk past Jet apartments being a reminder of the old 'San An days and also a reminder of how horrific it would be to actually stay there as a hotel guest older than 19. Their hotel DJ is louder than the bars next door, I don't see this as a bad thing, I am just drawing to a conclusion that PDB ain't much different to San An anymore.
.........Made note that daughter will not be staying there under any circumstances. Young men jumping between balconies, whatever next (I never did that myself - cough)
The straw that broke the camels back, believe it or not, was being charged 28 Euros for two sub-sized Heineken's in Hi. I will openly admit, foolishly or not that I once paid over $1000 for a single non-vintage Dom P in Wet Republic (Vegas). I got decent value that day for reasons I won't bore you with here. The Hi situation was different, something had to be done so I decided to try and avoid going back there (never say never in Ibiza) and vote with my wallet. I had been going to Space for years and never minded, the first bottle of water I purchased back in '96 inside Manumission was £7.
Something larger (lager?) was obviously at work in my brain and it was - I was no longer having a good time in Playa.
It was fairly incredulous then, when I walked through San An last year on a test mission, after watching Eric Prydz play to no more than a dozen of us at Mambo, me and my missus had a most splendid evening with little more than a carrier bag full of ciders and a few Vodka chasers in tow - from Lidl*
One of my major concerns about San An was the West End - not any more.
They have actually kettled in the West End top to bottom, to the extent that if i walk across the top of the West End to the quiet pub on the corner, not a single person will bother me. Its like magic. And not only that, the walk from Mambo to said location was a joy, it was in complete contrast to Bossa which frankly, now resembles one big, expensive mess that does not deserve the high price tag it is commanding.
Curiously, whilst I was still in San An I then saw an advertisement and cheap tickets for Ocean Beach. It will be crap I said, lets give it a go my missus said and thus we went the next day.
Long story short, the music was naff, the venue was nice, the sushi was (surprisingly) top notch and ok some of the people there needed a smack in the chops but that goes for all places in Ibiza, even back in '96. I include myself in that number from time to time.
All in all I had really great time there and to top it all off, i did not feel like I had been ripped to shreds at the bar. In terms of the whole experience, it seemed more worthwhile and it got me thinking, as the sun started to set, I can walk to Mambo from here you know via that bad ass 'offy with the five different flavours of Belvedere vodka in the window (its the one as you come off the main square up the hill towards Mambo). Little things.
This year, I saw that Defected have put a weekly night on at Eden and my favourite night, Together @ Amnesia is not even in PDB. Destino, Blue Marlin are a drive but my word, those taxi drivers don't half motor it down that nice new dual-carriageway the Spanish built. I swear on at least one occasion per holiday one of these taxi drivers will break the land speed record as I look nervously around the drivers shoulder at the speedometer and twitch in the back-seat.
We had a gravel track back in '96, going at such speeds was only possible by dropping a load of gear and taking your shoes off on Formentera beach.
That was it then, off to San An Hotel hunting this year with my old, grumpy ass. Even the hotels are a shed load cheaper. Viva La San Antonio!
Playa d'en Bossa - I might be back next year, now go away and sort yourself out for 2019, like they have done with Ibiza Port - now theres a good lad.
*only joking its the supermarket near mambo with the Alladin's cave cellar full of booze. Is that Lidl? (goes off to google).
