No carbs before marbs

Oh me? Yeah I'm fine thanks, having just returned from my 4th holiday of the year. And while I'm no stranger to a trip away, this was my first proper summer trip of the year (with some of the previous ones being sub-zero) and I was super excited for it. It was also my first holiday with my friend Paige and it was in celebration of not only the bank holiday, but also her 25th birthday so there was even more reason to party! Having previously done Magaluf, Zante and Ibiza, I decided it was time to see what Marbella was all about and after a bit of googling, we chose the NH Marbella hotel which was just outside of Marbella old town and a £10 Uber away from Puerto Banus. As with all my holidays, we booked it through loveholidays.com and it cost us just over £400 each for the flights and accommodation for the 3 nights that we were there. And after a cheeky drink at the airport, we arrived! My airport outfit didn't feature my usual travel trousers (for once) and I instead wore thigh split skirt (shein), striped wrap top (new look) and lace up sandals (primark).

After spending 5 whole minutes unpacking (because realistically, how much stuff can you need for 4 days in a hot country), we headed straight out into the sun. Our pool area was beautiful and had the number 1 most important thing; a pool bar. So we spent the rest of the afternoon gossiping, getting a tan (and a burnt face) and sipping sex on the beaches.

Our hotel was in a great location with a row of shops and restaurants within 3 minutes walking distance so we obviously headed off in search of the essentials; vodka, water and mixer (in that order). To say Marbella is so infamously expensive, the vodka was only £4 for the bottle! So when we got back, we got ourselves some predrinks and got ready. I went super bright in this SheIn midi skirt and then added black heels (ebay), black milkmaid top (missguided) and orange smoky eye makeup. I swear the second I set foot on Spanish soil, my brain just starts chanting sangria-and-tapas over and over again so we headed in to the old town and found just that! The sangria was perfect and the food was amazing (although a few of the dishes randomly came with chips?)

Then we went out drinking! I'm a sucker for a totally instagrammable cocktail and these zombies in jazzy glasses with fire and cinnamon sprinkles for extra flames were definitely that. Another thing that was surprisingly instagrammable was the photo we got of the two of us; as you tell by the hilarious selfie they took, our photographers were pretty drunk so I'm shocked it came out in focus.

Normally, when I go on party holidays, it's all about being out until the morning, dragging yourself out in to the sun at lunch time and then having a nap and repeating the whole thing. Well, something I hadn't realised about Marbs before getting there was that it's all about the daytime. All the best parties and events happen while the sun is up! That included the Aces event at Plaza Beach which we were initially hesitant about (being that it's from Nottingham, we weren't sure if it would be a bit samey) before changing our mind and deciding to go. I wore this tribal print swimsuit which is from Pretty Little Thing and I absolutely love the high cut leg. Obviously before a whole day of drinking, we had to line our stomachs so we went for lunch at the Sunset cafe and had some lovely food and cocktails (I stayed on the sangria train and Paige went for what would be her cocktail of the holiday, a long island iced tea).

Despite my initial iffy-ness, the Aces event was uh-mazing (and totally different from their other events). Plaza beach was beautiful and the drinks actually weren't too expensive (like €25 for a bottle of wine), which made it easy to get super drunk, super quick. I always feel like getting drunk in the sun is just a different level of drunk and this certainly applied here! We also made friends with a couple of lovely girls so it ended up being a good group of us and we had so much fun!

We'd been weighing up a few different options for Sunday; the downside for only going anywhere for a long weekend is that you simply can't do it all. We eventually decided on Nikki beach and were very glad that we did. The place is amazing, as were the cocktails and the food (served a la sunbed). The only downside is that it's super expensive (the waiter kept trying to sell me a champagne cocktail that was €75 for ONE) but as long as you go there expecting it, then it's not too bad. We didn't get quite as drunk as the day before and had more of a chilled kind of day, soaking up the sun. A little too much in fact; I've burnt the little patch on my stomach where the window in my swimsuit is! This swimsuit was definitely a popular one as I saw a few people in it; it's from pretty little thing again and is a bit of a faff to get on and off but I love it.

It's the first rule of holidaying that you wear white on the last night; it's simply the done thing. So Paige wore a white dress and I wore a scarf print skirt, black heels and white bralet combo (a lace one under a plunge frill one). I finished the look with plenty of highlighter and a red colour pop lip. Because we were going to a club night (which didn't start until 1am), we thought we'd go out for a nice meal first and there was a really cute little Italian just down the road from our hotel. Which was perfect, because we'd been craving pasta all day! If there's one on the menu, I'll normally go for a filled pasta so I had to get the chicken and roasted pepper ravioli and was not disappointed (*insert drool emoji here*).

The club we'd decided to go to was Mirage and don't get me wrong, it was really good. The venue was great and I loved the music, but the place was kind of ruined by how many stuck up bitches it was filled with. Literally, I've never been in a room with a more unfriendly group of people; if you smiled at 100 of them, maybe 2 of them would smile back (a theory I was testing by smiling at girls that I caught looking at me but to no avail). I think that's the one thing I would say about Marbella that pegs it below the other party destinations I've been to; so many people are just too up themselves to genuinely have a good time. Even in the pretentious parts of Ibiza (like Ocean Beach), everyone is still letting loose and having fun whereas half the people in Marbella seemed to have a permanent stick up their arse and seemed to literally only be there to take photos for instagram. That could never be me; I'm here for a good time not a long time. But despite the kind of rude clientele, the night was still a good one and a great way to finish off an amazing trip.

The next morning was a serious struggle; not so much for me but certainly for Paige, who had stayed out a couple of hours longer than me until the bitter end of the night (7ish) and was still drunk when I dragged her to the airport! But we managed to make our flight on time so that's the main thing, and we were of course greeted back in England with a total downpour. Ah, home sweet home. We had literally the best time and I'm sad it feels like it's all over so quickly. Luckily, we're already planning the next one!