My Bristol Stag Weekend Part 1

My Bristol Stag Weekend – Part One

(Editors note – the Stag Weekend that this article is describing is from a pre-COVID era. If you are heading out on a stag weekend while social distancing restrictions are in place, please ensure that you are following them and check what restrictions are in place at your destination before you travel).

Stag Weekend - FRIDAY:

The weekend is here! Finally, after lots of build up, discussion and planning, it’s time for me and the lads to head off on my Stag Weekend, and I am truly excited. We’d picked Bristol as it is the perfect destination – not too expensive, not too far away and is absolutely inundated with activities, bars and clubs, all the ingrediants to make a Bristol stag weekend a blinder! However, they’ve not told me basically anything of what we are doing, so I’m approaching the whole weekend with an open mind (and one eye on my wallet).

Gary (the best man) had arranged to pick me up at 11am, and it wasn’t long before I was shoehorned into his car along with Mikey, Luke and Baco (so named because he ate Bacon for every meal for years and years). Five grown men in a Renault Clio isn’t the best idea in the world, but the supplies stop where we pick up some disgusting fast food (which was delicious) and some energy drinks soon balance out the mood, and before you know it we are singing and laughing as we pull up into what looks like a school car park.

The excitement picked up as I saw two other cars pull in to the car park just a few moments after we had arrived – the rest of the lads are here! With all twelve of us together and excited, Gary skillfully directs us into the school building for our first activity of the weekend – Zorb Football.

Now we like a kickabout (admittedly some more than others), but Zorb Football is unlike any game of football you have ever played. Once we’ve all got changed into our football gear, then the next thing that happens is a quick talk on how to play the game from the exciteable coach, and then we squeeze into our Zorbs and get ready to play.

For those of you who don’t know, Zorbs are like giant inflatable beach balls that you climb into, ending up looking as if you are just a pair of legs sticking out of the bottom of a small globe. The game itself is a five a side football match, but instead of the standard skills you rely on in a five a side game, the best skill is how willing you are to hurl yourself bodily at your friends to secure a victory. It is energetic, exciting and tiring all at the same time, and really brought out the competitive spirit in all of us – particularly those who don’t normally play a lot of sport (looking at you Baco!).

After our hour-long session, we piled back into the cars and headed to our accommodation – a great, privately run guesthouse in the centre of Bristol with a pub round the corner and a hugely friendly owner. Ideal for the 'just got there where's the pub' part of the stag weekend After the usual debacle over figuring out who is sharing rooms with who, who is in a twin and who is in a triple, we all get settled in and do the first standard freshen up of the weekend – the three S’s (if you know, you know – if you don’t know I’m certainly not going to be the one to tell you!)

Meeting up downstairs, we wait for the stragglers to get ready and then we head to the pub around the corner for the first round of the evening. Pleasantly surprised by the low price and friendly atmosphere, we stick around for a few rounds before heading into the centre of town for some dinner.

Pretty soon we find ourselves in a popular Pizza chain (I was told not to name any names when I wrote this up, but think about someone that serves Pizza in a small building and you’ll get the idea), having a great time and some great food. Once we’ve eaten and drunk, we head out into Bristol to see what the bars and pubs have to offer us.

Most of the night is spent on the waterside, where there seem to be an endless stream of bars, pubs or restaurants who are happy to accommodate us (certainly until we get too rowdy later in the evening). We drink beers and cocktails, with the occasional inevitable round of shots arriving at the table every so often to ensure that we’re getting as boozy as we should be. Amazingly, we don’t lose anyone before midnight, so we stagger out into the darkness to find somewhere that we can hole up and drink until we don’t want to drink anymore.

While some of the group stand near a taxi rank and debate what is our next best course of action, Gary, Steve and I head into a nearby pub – it’s tiny and friendly and most importantly of all they sell some absolutely gorgeous whiskey. We enjoy a nice one on the rocks before we all pile into a set of taxis and head off to a nightclub.

I’d tell you all about the nightclub, but in true stag weekend fashion my memory is pretty vague from this point onwards. I remember flashing lights, loud music and an overwhelming feeling of having a ,good time, but I don’t remember any specifics.

Stag Weekend - SATURDAY:

Waking up with a banging head and a sore mouth are two good signs of a great night out. Couple that with the fact that I appear to only have one of the two shoes I went out wearing last night and that when we get down to breakfast I discover that we are actually missing Luke completely. Turns out that he didn’t make it back last night and no-ones heard from him. We eat as much breakfast as each of us can stand and are just considering whether or not we need to call someone when he arrives – apparently, he fell asleep in a park and remembers nothing else!

Slowly but surely, we all get ourselves together and pretty soon we are ready to head out for our Saturday activities – I don’t know what they are yet, and I’m super excited!

(Part Two to Follow)

If you are planning a stag weekend in Bristol or anywhere else in the UK or Europe, get in touch on 01202 566100 or email [email protected] and one of our stag weekend experts can create your perfect Bristol stag weekend package.