The headline should have been “Amsterdam Euro Pride Where the Milkshake Brought the Boys to the Bars” just to be fun on the pun that it started out with a Milkshake festival a week before the canal pride weekend. Amsterdam Pride this year was part of the Euro Pride celebration. Although it did not change it much for me as the canal pride weekend is by itself spectacular. Paradiso Saturday night where all the boys were besides NYX. NYX had a very hot crowd on Saturday FPQXL (GAY PRIDE). Thursday night the block party started from NYX over to Taboo. The cue to get in NYX was more of a mob outside and there was no way to figure out where the line was. People who attend this club have no understanding of how to wait in a single file line. It needs to be more organized. We ended up going to Soho which for some odd reason had there upstairs closed off adding to overcrowding downstairs. The DJ was playing from the stairs so that may have been the reason.
Friday night we went to the H.I.M. Event at Air nightclub which was also crowded to the max. We had bought our tickets in advance so all we had to do was scan our phones. Once inside you have to buy a drink card and refill it say $30 for 2 vodka redbulls with tiny shots that are measured with pour controls. We had more luck going to the bar to the right of the stage to order drinks and get them within the next 30 minutes. The music was mostly good this night as we noticed several offer nissim inspired songs.
Saturday night (above)
Sunday night we started out at NYX where they had one of the worst DJ’s I’ve heard in years. They should have just named it Drake night with this DJ Billy Balster at what was supposed to be a Regenboog Special. This was not a “rainbow” party as advertised playing mostly Drake-ish music that has 
done nothing for the gay community. No fun upbeat mixes you would expect from the Dutch who are known for much better DJs. Everyone looked like zombies dancing to the moans and auto tunes instead of sick dance beats. We then went over to exit that had a more energized crowd although they played 80% Beyoncé. I assume Drake and Beyoncé had a hold on the Amsterdam Sunday night of gay pride for some odd reason.
Next was the circuit event that is at a park that is not at all close to the center of Amsterdam. It was a $30 or so uber ride although they provided buses from Paradiso. Once you get to the park you walk for quite a ways then walk inside this warehouse that has a dark room area upstairs but no real privacy walls and a large dance floor with boxes to dance on below. It’s a nicely laid out venue and if your drugged up enough you can enjoy the music as well. Don’t think we heard any Offer Nissim or too many gay anthems at this event but we heard the funhouse party the night before wAs more about that. This finale party was more for the final “tweaks” of the weekend.
Amsterdam has a fun gay scene on a normal weekend. With Air and NYC being my favorites when they are less busy. The huge festival going on in front the the NH SHiller had so much going on from around 2pm to 10pm on Sunday. You do not want to miss the closing party that night.
If you want to enjoy a few good meals in Amsterdam that is not Italian food we recommend a few stops. One is Mexican food which you would not expect to be good but its good salsa, entrees, drinks and even a gay friendly staff. This restaurant is La Margarita. Pretty basic name right? There are two of these one is near Taboo bar but this one is Argentina food. The other one is Mexican. We also enjoyed La Verde which is across from Church.
We stayed at the NH Carlton hotel because it was so close to soho and the gay bars block party at NYX. This hotel definitely needs an update but it worked well for what was needed. They didn’t have our reservation when we arrived at the hotel and that was rather disappointing and frustrating. It was also embarrassing. They upgraded to room to one with a balcony which was nice but it was sticky and very dirty and the windows had hand marks all over them as did the wall above the bed. I felt gross inside the room scared of what bugs were going to gnaw on me in my sleep judging from the uncleanliness of the room.
We also called down to have the sheets changed out but even when you request for new sheets you only get to have them changed out on the second day of your stay.
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