How a San Diego Bachelor Party Turned into a Tijuana Fiesta

San Diego is a gorgeous town with an abundance of beaches, Mexican food, and margaritas. For this exact reasoning, a friend of mine chose to have his bachelor party there and celebrate his upcoming decision to be a faithful guy for the rest of his life with a group of eight of his closest friends. The bachelor party went off as planned, but after tearing up the town of San Diego, a few of us ended up in Tijuana, Mexico. Today I’ll share the story with you and let you know what to do, and not do, when you attempt to accomplish this feat.

San Diego Bachelor Party Scene

The purpose of this trip wasn’t deviancy, it was good old fashioned fun in a great climate. Sharing each other’s company was goal #1, and that was accomplished. People started arriving on Thursday for the weekend festivities, which ended Sunday, but like usual, there are always some outliers with bad flight options who decided to stay until Monday. (I was one of those guys.)

Low and behold, steak, tacos, and fireball shots only go so far. By 2 PM on Friday, we were jonesing to see some boobs. The good thing is, there were places open that would cater to this. The bad thing is, it wasn’t even the B squad working, it was a pretty bad mix of the C and D squad at that hour. (Of course, everyone says to come back later in the night. Sure.)

After looking over options on our phones, we were left as confused as any tourist looking at mixed reviews and varied star ratings. We finally met a guy outside the Waterfront bar, which is one of the top dives I’ve been to in a minute, and he urged us to go to a place called Pacers. Before I review Pacers, let me share with you the various San Diego strip clubs and what we know about them.

Be sure to check out my plethora of cities made for bachelor parties.

• Nicaragua. Yes, Nicaragua!
• Why Panama is #1 for Bachelors Right NOW
• Is Costa Rica still Great for Bachelor Parties?

Also, make sure you know where prostitution is legal. Hint: not anywhere in the USA!

Deja Vu Showgirls

This club had solid online ratings, and as it’s either a chain or has one in every venue we seem to come across, we figured it was the best option. However, after meeting the guy having a cigarette, he said “it’s a bunch of really young money hungry girls and they don’t have booze.”

“Really young” caught my attention, and assuming they were 18 or above, I was interested! I didn’t know what was wrong with that.

“Money hungry” describes just about every woman on Earth (our Mother’s excluded) and 100% is the job of every stripper, so again I was wondering why that guy thought that was a bad thing?

“No booze.” Okay, that’s a non-starter for me. Next! The group agreed. We couldn’t kill a 2 PM buzz by going back to being sober. It just makes it too odd when later in the night we want to get drunk again.

Again, this place gets great ratings online, having a 4.0 Google star rating when I checked it, which is very high, as most people are drunk and give bad strip club reviews because they spend too much money. So in all fairness, as a strip club guru myself, I think a 4.0 rating is strong….to quite strong.

Prices are extremely fair, women are absolutely beautiful, and the atmosphere is relaxed and fun. The girls are sweet and personal with you and make sure you’re taken care of. Being in the navy and have met many girls who are in this line of work, this is by fine the finest and cleanest business I’ve been to and seen. I will continue to come back when the time calls for it.

-Mark Johnson (Google Review)

Background review: My friends and I like to travel a lot around the U.S. and we like to check out the local clubs to compare which is the best in each state. This review is based on a Friday night as I believe we had the most fun here.

Layout: What can I say about Deja Vu…man California is so strict on their club laws but Deja Vu does everything to make you feel good and have fun even with the stupid laws. The inside of the club is clean and awesome with the show lights working perfectly with the dancers and the atmosphere.

Staff: Almost all of them were fun to hang out and talk to. Each one has their own unique talent on stage and private room so it’s always a surprise when you pick one for your particular taste. None of them make you feel uncomfortable and even the security are there to happily answer your questions or assist you when you are trying to find drinks or a place to chill.

Music:: music was on point and sometimes made the show even better. People will laugh, cheer and become more involved with who ever is on stage.

Entertainment: 5
Music: 5
Staff: 5
Price: 5
Overall: 5

Summary: this is the place to be when you need to relieve stress or get away from your worries just for a night. The price is great and you get every dollar worth. Now a lot of people complain they can do more at different states but this is California and they do not fully support business owners when they want to build their franchise to this type of fun entertainment. I wish I had a chance to meet the owner. Sir or Ma’am, you created a wonderful establishment and I wish I could’ve meet you before we left the state. I look forward to coming here again and have recommended this place to everyone I know that lives in San Diego. I also want to give a shout out to Staff Member Berlin for being a wonderful host and making the club amazing. You the real MVP. Also whoever did your hair did an AMAZING job!

-Teemus 2009 (Google Review)

I usually don’t like to post the bad reviews, because why air dirty laundry, but this “DJ FERO” is clearly pissed that he didn’t get any employment with this place judging on his Deja Vu strip club in San Diego review. I found it comical (and yet another reason the 4.0 rating should be higher) so here it is:

Girls are beautiful and vibe of people is awesome… management is blind dumb and can’t recognize the skillset of a real one that wants to program at the strip club not in a cage or rehab… straight up these idiots can’t even recognize my status within the music industry and clearly hated on my chance to creatively enhance the way they operate the business that they claim is in need of changes…

-DJ FERO (Google Review)

Then, we got one that echoed what our boy smoking cigs said, which was worthy of posting:

This place is pretty much highway robbery. Right when we got there it was a $20 cover per person. Even after we got in, the ATM charged 10% fee for monies taken out. Right after we got $400 in singles, not only were we shorted money, the dancers refused to take singles and explicitly said only 20’s were allowed for dances. $20 for a dance and $60 for a topless dance. Would not recommend and we left very soon after we arrived. Do not go, you will definitely get robbed.

-Austin Kelly (Google Review)

I’ll go on record that only an idiot doesn’t know that strip club ATM fees are always higher than say, Wells Fargo. Also, to say “you will definitely get robbed” is quite misleading. Austin, if you don’t agree with their prices, that’s fine. But you can’t say people will be robbed just because the pricing doesn’t agree with your (lack of) budget. Next time be prepared to spend some money, playa.

All in all, we didn’t make it here, so I can only write what’s being reported and what’s known about Deja Vu in San Diego. Sounds like it’s the best place to go, perhaps, if you can afford it, but again, we were persuaded by “an informed local” to go to Pacers, so that was our play.

Other San Diego Strip Clubs

Gaslamp Strip Club

Didn’t open until 5 PM, so for that reason alone, we couldn’t check it out. The Google reviews at the time of writing this are a solid 4.3, and many are from Local Guides, which is an accredited Google reviewer. So this place has a lot of potential, unfortunately I can’t verify that.

GoldFinger’s Gentlemen’s Club

Yet another place not opening until 6 PM, we also had to sit this one out. This one was rated a 3.5 and even worse, the recent reviews were all pretty bad, so we didn’t feel like we were missing out on this one, but hey, miles vary, and if it were open, we’d probably have seen for ourselves.

Pacers Showgirls International

Since this was the joint our new local friend suggested, it was where we went. It was a bit of a hike out of downtown San Diego, probably a good 15-20 minutes, but we had time to kill so it didn’t matter. Once you get off the highway, this place is down the block on a rather busy otherwise business-oriented street. You turn into the place and immediately see the ropes and red carpet that lead you to a metal detector. Safety first!

Once inside, (there was no cover at this time) the place is sprawling, complete with an outdoor area for smokers and an area that has a kitchen. The staff was very friendly, even the door guy was telling us that their rib special was amazing for Football Sunday.

My friend Mikey asked the bartender how the margarita was, which I thought was weird since who gets a margarita at a titty bar? Well, Mikey does. So let him live!

The day shift could have used some help that fine Friday. The diverse set of girls working there were a range of black, white, Asian, Latina, and everything in between. I’ll say on an entertainment value of watching pole dances, this place put out a good show. As far as the beauty of the talent, well, that is where it lacked. There weren’t any smoke shows here, but on the bright side, there weren’t any extreme pigs here. Everyone was a 6-7 it seemed, on my scale at least.

The dancers who perform on the pole do come around and ask if you saw their dance. If you say yes, be prepared to tip them at least $1. If you say not, they won’t really bother you. This theme happens in the rather Latin Miami strip clubs, so it wasn’t new to me. Although in Miami they can get really ghetto, really quick, and they don’t care if you sat down while they exited the stage, they want their cash, looky looky, or no. (I hate that, and for that reason I skip those places.)

The lap dances were pure garbage. California has a strict law on strip clubs and what happens inside is very watered down, I get that, but you can’t even touch stomachs or arms or anything during a lap dance. Coming from Floria, where the Tootsie’s women encourage finger blasting from the get-go, this was awful for me.

Everyone was nice enough here and that alone made us stay a few hours and enjoy our drinks and chat with some of the women. Lap dances were a hard pass after we all had one, and hated them, but we just ended up having fun with the stage performances and each other’s company. This left us with a serious thirst in our mouths for more, and this thirst was quenched the following night when a few of us decided to head to Tijuana.

How to Enter Tijuana Without a Passport

They say getting there is half the battle, and when it comes to visiting Tijuana from San Diego, there could not be a statement that rings more true than this one. For starters, the ride share services just won’t bring you to Tijuana. In fact, here’s what I got when I attempted to get a Lyft to the belly of the beast, Hong Kong’s Gentlemen’s Club.

Luckily, San Diego’s finest Taxis are happy to charge you about $50 to get to Tijuana. We decided to get one and make the trek not knowing what we were up against. I ended up speaking Spanish to the driver and he explained to me that he’d drop us off about a block from the border, and that was as far as he could drive us. I asked if it was a problem that we didn’t have passports with us, and he said “no bueno, pero bueno.” Basically, “it’s not good, but whatever.”

Okay then…..

We get dropped off and start the trek. I was so curious as to the surroundings and not wanting to get pick-pocketed while doing other things that I didn’t even take any photos. I made the walk with my head up and hands in my pockets as my two friends briskly walked next to me. Finally, after reaching “the line” to get into Mexico, we get to a turnstyle type of organized line that you’d see at Disney World, only this line has it all. Immigrants (I suppose) returning home from working across the boarder, party goers, deviants, smugglers, the whole nine yards. It was a line of complete debauchery, albeit it was past 2 in the morning, so what would a guy expect?

After about 40 drunk minutes of waiting in this line, we get to the front.

Desk Operator: May I see your passport?

Me: Don’t have one.

Desk Operator: Okay, go see my supervisor in that room.

As the three of us enter what looks like a classroom of sort, a man in uniform stands there and asks in Spanish “do you know how this works?”

Feeling confident, I reply with a “Si, Senor.”

He offers out his hand, clearly looking for some cash, to which my usually alligator armed friend finds a twenty dollar bill and slides it to the man, who then ushers us into Mexico.

And just like that, we were there! There is a big sign greeting you that says “Mexico” hanging over a tunnel where the traffic was directed to pass. Granted, I was hammered, but that’s what I remember. After crossing this tunnel type of deal, we were there all right. Homeless people sleeping on the street, bright lights, and people begging.

Hong Kong Gentlemen’s Club in Tijuana Review

Let me just say, that about every time a place is so hyped up, it’s a let down. However, I’m happy to say that in the case of “Hong Kong’s” as many people simply call it, this wasn’t true!

According to the San Diego Reader, in 2018 the club built a 12 story building in less than five months. It also calls it a “palace of orgies.” It’s one of the tallest buildings in Tijuana, and it’s a spectacle to see.

As I sat on what I thought was one of the best booths in the joint, on level two, overlooking about 20 girls dancing on poles below, I quickly realized the height and depth of this amazing mecca. The club just went on and on, and as I took a walk to check it out after a while of sitting, I realized that if I didn’t take good mental notes, I’d never find my way back to my booth!

You can take the women to the $17 hotel for anywhere between $60 and $80 for a half hour and have hot steamy hook ups. Have a lot of $1 bills ready because everyone from the door guy to the house keeping who clean your room expect tips. If you give them $5, you are over-tipping! (Gotta love this place.)

The beers were $2 for the men (Tecate) and $9 for the women. The women’s beers were slim, maybe 6 oz or so. But who cares, when they hang out, it’s all worth it. We didn’t get into any mixed drinks as we didn’t need them and we were fearing they may be poison (well not me, but my voice of reason friend sure did think that) or roofied.

The amount of women in this place was incalcuable, as the club was so sprawling and you never knew how many were in the hotel rooms with satisfied customers. Spending a few hours here, in the very early AM, was the best part of turning a San Diego bachelor party into a Tijuana bachelor party for the ages.

I’ll just leave it all right there. While I was tempted to get some street meat outside (is there a more vintage Mexican treat than street tacos in Tijuana?), my friends insisted we return straight away to the taxi and head back to San Diego, California. (Had to throw the state name on there just to accentuate that yes, indeed, we left the country.)

Oh, and as far as returning to the States……

They asked us “where is your passport?” to which we replied “we don’t have them.” They asked what we did, and we confessed that we went to Hong Kong Strip Club, and that we were there for a few hours. After one minute, we were free to cross the border and pass out in a taxi.

So the next time you decide to make plans for a bachelor party in San Diego, make sure you consider adding a little spice to it and head down to Tijuana for a night. You can thank me later.