Five DJs tell us their Ibiza horror stories

It was my first year out in Ibiza with the Radio 1 crew, I'd come to play Ushuaia on the Friday night and then stay for the weekend to experience it in full. As a weekend it was amazing, my set went great, I met a lot of great people, I was only 21 and it blew my mind. However, on the first night (Thursday) I got a bit carried away. Every year there is a notorious party on a yacht in Ibiza Town, I went knowing full well I had to appear on the breakfast show first thing with all the other R1 Dance Crew. Couple drinks I thought, then home. Well, this is Ibiza after all and a couple turned into a few, then many, then next thing; it was 7am and I had to be on air in an hour. Wicked. I had to make it on time, it was my first year.

So I walked from my friends apartment near Ibiza Rocks to Mambos where we were broadcasting from. The walk felt like forever, I stopped in an empty carpark to access how beautiful the sea looked (and also to be sick) and then ventured onto my destination which felt like a marathon. Made it. Phew. I walked in expecting to see everyone.... None of the other DJs turned up on time, Just me. So there I was, in sunglasses, with a plate of food balanced on my knee, having to do the DJ quiz on my own with Grimmy live on BBC Radio 1's breakfast show. When everyone did arrive, I got asked to play a Ibiza Classic, I played Atlantic Ocean - Waterfall. When I got asked on air why I liked this tune, out of all the things to say, the only words I could conjure up were.... ''Because the video's got dolphins in and I like dolphins''. I got asked if I liked dolphins by multiple strangers in clubs the whole weekend... Nice one Ibiza.

We were residents for The Dogs Balearics, which was Channel 4's weekly Ibiza catch up that ran for the entire summer of 2000. One of our weekly flights out of Stansted (back then BA Go was the only direct non charter flight to Ibiza) happened to be the same day air traffic suffered a huge crash and having arrived at the airport to be told our flight wouldnt be leaving, we were told not to check in yet as it was chaos, but to keep an eye on our flight from the pub opposite. It just so happened England were playing Germany in a Euro 2000 Qualifier that evening, so we stocked up on some buckets of Bud (five for a tenner I recall) and settled down to watch a rare England win! Several hours and beers later we finally boarded the plane and found ourselves sat next to Dermot O'Leary, the host of The Dogs Balearics.

We knew Dermot quite well (from our time on T4) and he was a lovely guy, but quite straight. We belted up for take off and Dermot was mumbling how tired he was, and needing to have a sleep as he had a few days filming ahead. Soon after take off we hear a commotion behind us and somebody calling out "Mark, Pete" and we turn around to see Brandon Block charging up the aisle to say hello, laden with cans of G&T he had commandeered from the stewardesses trolley! He asked why our friend was asleep, poked him in the ear whilst shouting "no sleeping on this plane mate" and forced a can of Gin upon a tired and startled looking Dermot! Needless to say nobody had a peaceful flight, but plenty of Gin and Brandon banter.

We finally arrived at our villa in the early hours and decided it would be a great idea to jump straight in the pool, fully clothed. Only when we emerged did we realise we had our passports in our pocket, so we left them outside to dry off and thought nothing else of it. It was only when we arrived at the airport a couple of days later to fly home to find our passports, having been out in the sun for days, were pretty much wrecked! The plastic was peeling off the photo, ink had blurred and the check in girl immediately called security who took us to one side and said in his best broken English that they were the worst fakes he had ever seen and demanded to know what had happened. I think we lost him at Brandon Block and it took hours of explaining, missed flights and an emergency travel document but we finally made it home, only to turn around and do it all again the following week…

We played one of our first shows at Amnesia a few years ago and as we were leaving I knelt down on what I thought was a glittery floor but unfortunately turned out to be broken glass. As you can imagine, my knee was pretty badly cut. At the time I didn’t think much of it and continued the party. However, a few hours later when we went to an after party with a few friends my knee started bleeding all over the hotel room. I didn’t actually realise how bad the injury was until I woke up the next day and my bed looked like a murder scene. Thankfully Artwork saved the day - he went to get a first aid kit and bandaged it up for me. When I eventually got back to London, the paramedics redressed it for me and ended up doing a worse job than Artwork. So big ups Nurse Arthur!

Back when I was about 18, me and all the girls went to Ibiza on our first 'girls' holiday and we all went to the West End on the first night, biggest mistake ever. We went on a bar crawl and got way too pissed on cheap, nasty vodka. We ended up losing one of the girls and spent all night looking for her. I was on the phone to my mum, crying my eyes out, saying "I've lost me mate Janine" and it turns out that she was just in bed the whole time and didn't tell any of us. So we went home and all kicked off at her but Janine is a black belt in Karate. She wanted to beat me up and the holiday ended up getting cut short because all the girls went home.

I thought "they can fuck off, I'm not leaving here" and I stayed another two weeks on my own with a couple of mates I had over there. Then I just decided I wanted to do a season and ended up doing on a few years after.