My Southampton Hen Do

My Southampton Hen Do

Southampton is one of the places that I am most fond of in my life. I lived there as a teenager and while I moved away prior to going to uni, it has always been somewhere that I have a great time whenever I visit. So from the moment my lovely fiancé Rob had proposed, I knew exactly where I wanted to go for my hen do. Luckily my maid of honour has similar feelings about the place, as she is my sister Karen, so she didn’t take much convincing that a Southampton hen do would be the perfect place for my hen weekend – not that I should have needed to do any of the convincing, after all it is my special weekend!

With that decision made, I was shut out of all the others (except providing some suggestions for the guest list) and consequentially I got into Karen’s car with no idea what was going on knowing only that it was a Southampton hen do and nothing else. Southampton is a couple of hours drive away from where I live now, so with Katy and Josie in the back of the car passing me vodka jellies (no I was not the driver!), we whiled the drive away with a few drinks and a lot of laughter. Pretty soon we were pulling up on our Southampton hen do at some gorgeous looking apartments, which Karen quickly told me was where we were staying all weekend. I was impressed, these were high quality hen weekend accommodations, with comfortable looking beds and a great lounge area for us all to share a bottle of bubbly together. We had two of these to fit the nine of us who were on the Sothampton hen do, and at no point over the weekend did we ever find ourselves lacking for space. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Once we had all unpacked and had a couple more drinks, I was expecting Karen to get us all together and get on our way out of the door to start enjoying the sights and sounds of our Southampton hen do . What I was NOT expecting was someone to ring the doorbell. “Who is that?” I asked, “We’re all here”. Karen answered the door with a smile, and a very fit looking gentleman walked in. Yup, it turned out that the first activity on my Southampton hen do was a stripper, and that’s all I’m going to tell you, except that it was a lot of fun, oh, did I also mention that he was fit!

With the stripper finished, it was time for us to all head out to grab a bite to eat before hitting the town on our Southampton hen do properly. Given how much we’d already drunk, we were lucky that there was a restaurant near to the apartment where we could sit down and eat a decent meal to soak up all of that alcohol and essential addition to my Southampton hen do. A couple of hours later, feeling more sober and healthier, we were off. I wanted our first night out to be a tour of as many different places as we could visit, and Karen had once again pulled off an absolutely superb selection. We seemed to have guest list entry everywhere, and the range of bars and pubs we visited meant that we were on a full-on bar crawl. Surprisingly, we all made it to the end, where we got into Southampton's biggest nightclub and immediately made a splash on the dancefloor. Everyone was watching us as we showed them all our best dance moves, and that went on until the early hours of the morning. What a first night on my Southampton hen do!

I woke up around 11am, groggy and hungover, and staggered into the lounge to find that Karen had populated the apartment with some excellent breakfast snacks (pastries, fruit, that kind of thing), for people to help themselves to. She also said that we didn’t have another Southampton hen do activity booked until later that day, so we could all just chill out and chat, which was lovely and in no small way, a bit of a relief. At about 2pm, the doorbell rang again, and Karen let in a lovely lady who said she was here to pamper us! I was half expecting another stripper because the last one went down so well (pun not intended!) We all had shoulder and neck massages, and the girls had also all chipped in to get me a facial, which was much needed after the hard Southampton hen do drinking night before! All of this contained within our own private apartments, this was turning out to be the best Southampton hen do ever.

After the pampering session was over, there was another knock at the door….another stripper?!! But no, not this time, it was a lady and gentleman carrying various supplies, and it turned out they were there to give us a private cocktail making class, within the comfort of our own apartment. This was amazing to me – all the other hen dos I have been to have often involved a lot of walking from place to place (especially for the activities), but here I was having all of these things brought to me, this Southampton hen do is simply amazing. The cocktail making was hilarious – the lady running it was really good, we played games, made every cocktail you can think of and, more importantly, drank lots of them as well! Before I knew what was happening it was the evening, and the cocktail mixologists had packed up and were on their way.

Karen, however, still wasn’t finished with the surprises. She’d ordered in some food so that we could all eat in the apartment while gently getting ready, and then we were off for our second night out on my Southampton hen do. Like the first night, we all knew we wanted to visit a variety of pubs and bars (although maybe fewer than we had been around the night before). This time, we went for quality over quantity, having two or more drinks in each place and just generally having a whale of a time. We found ourselves in a different nightclub which played a different style of music, just a bit more relaxed and cheesy, and we settled in there for a good long night of dancing, drinking and chatting. It seemed to be a particularly good place for the single ladies among us to get chatted up, as there was a seemingly never-ending stream of men making advances, a great little ego boost.

And there you have it. You don’t want me to talk about the Sunday morning, because no-one cares about the Sunday morning of a hen do. We all know what happens then, you recover, check out and drive home as soon as everyone is sober enough to do so. What I will say is that this Southampton hen do was the best I have ever been on, even though it was mine! and if you are looking for somewhere that can host the perfect hen do, then Southampton is definitely the place to be.

The Stag and Hen Experience has been creating the best bespoke hen weekends away for over 12 years, so, if you're looking to plan a hen weekend package anywhere in the UK or abroad, get in touch on 01202 566100 or via this email address naomi@staghenexp.co.uk and one of our expert hen do organizers will help you put together a fantastic hen do for you and your group.