Bora Bora itself is not what plumber Graham, an Ibiza regular, had promised - free entry, pub prices. The bar used to be open to the beach, but the authorities made them enclose it and employ door staff. This doesn’t detract from the atmosphere too much, with glamour girls and muscle-bound posers strutting like peacocks, but the bar prices - £10 for a vodka and orange, £7 for a bottle of beer - does. If you can’t beat them, join them - we spent far too much of the week there dancing daftly and hogging the stage to keep the pouters out.

We opted for a relatively early first night and joined an hour-long queue for a taxi. One word of warning - taxis don’t like driving out to the sticks - even for a big fare. Many hours were wasted attempting to order taxis for them not to turn up or refuse to come. We had two hire cars, but no one wanted to skimp on alcohol - our honeymooners Dan and Vicky and occasionally sober journalist Imogen were more than generous with lifts.

Back at the villa we were enjoying a nightcap when Graham, already proving to be a handful, decided he needed something from his room - which he was sharing with my unfortunate friend Regina. Bert the builder came down from his room looking like he’d seen a ghost. So as not to wake Regina, Graham had climbed onto the roof and along to the upstairs terrace, crashing down from a table next to Bert’s room. Bert - a nervous sleeper and remembering Gerard’s warning that people jump over the wall to steal things - ran to his door screaming ready to kill an intruder, only to find a sheepish plumber with a twisted ankle pleading for his life.

And so it went on. Day two involved everyone being thrown in the pool. Steve was thrown in while asleep and made to drink neat vodka out of a flower pot - there had to be some efforts to maintain the stag sham.

After our first food shop and barbecue we headed into San Antonio where those who wanted to go clubbing had arranged a guestlist entry for Eden, a super club that was hosting cheesy Radio One DJ Judge Jules. After a bit of bar-hopping in San An (as it’s known), we headed for the club and were promptly told that "yes, your names are down but you're not coming in." That’s a new one, apparently they made a mistake, and when pride prevented us from paying we headed further into town and encountered the infamous West End - row after row of tacky British-style pubs broken frequently by kebab houses, costa del hell.

In between the clubbing and bar action we found plenty to do - though it was tempting to lounge by the pool and watch the sunset from the villa every night. On night three we watched the sun go down and ate a fantastic meal at Village Hotel Restaurant - about ten minutes walk past Cala Moli away from San Josep. We returned for dinner a couple of nights later on September 19 to find it closed for the winter, a reminder that most of the island shuts down completely when the holidaymakers and clubbers go home.

Further down the road, about 1.5 miles from the villa is Cala Vadella, an excellent sandy beach and bay that became the group’s favourite. Another good option, if a bit pebbly, is Cala Moli, less than a mile from the villa towards San Josep.

We spent time on other beaches in the southern part of the island. Playa den Bossa’s beach is a mile long and its main saving grace. Nearby the wide sandy bay of Ses Salinas is excellent - backed by a few bar restaurants but nothing as tacky as the main resorts. There’s great views on the way back across the salt lakes that give Salinas its name. Cala Compte, with a view out to some small rocky islands, is one of the best places to watch the sunset.

The most dramatic sight in the southern part of the island is Es Vedrè, a 378m high rock jutting almost vertically out of the sea and best viewed from Cala d’Hort. There’s many more things we’d like to have seen, but we had to stay focused on having fun and lying in the sun.

On Tuesday evening we tried our hand at another guestlist, this time for Privilege - the biggest club in the world with a capacity of around 10,000. This time there were no problems getting in and we danced until dawn to the techno and house of John Acquiviva and Mauro Picotto with all the trimmings - podium dancers, galleries with views over the gigantic dance floor and a massive swimming pool inside the main hall.

Privilege is in the hills next to Amnesia, another of the superclubs that charge up to £40 just to get in. We headed from there to Playa den Bossa to wait for Space to open, famous for all day dancing on its open-air terrace.

Most of us headed home before 10am when it opened, leaving Steve and Graham to keep on going. They eventually returned in the evening and the final pseudo-stag prank was executed as a completely exhausted Steve was thrown fully-clothed into the swimming pool. Not surprisingly, we failed to get him to come out that evening - but bonkers Graham came straight back out to play.