I went to Cardiff for my hen weekend and luckily I went with someone that was originally from Barry so she knew the area and knew where we should go for good music and a good night out.

Reflex is known for being an 80's bar which I was excited about, ok I was born in the 80's but I still loved the 80's music and thought this bar would be huge and very glam.

Reflex bar which is situated in the centre of Cardiff was somewhere that was mentioned a lot and I was really looking forward to going there and I assumed I would spend most of my weekend in the bar instead of going to other places.

Arriving in Cardiff at about 7pm we didn't actually go out until about 9pm and I kept think about the Reflex and when we would be heading there. We went to a few other pubs first and loved them all. Then after having a few drinks we decided that we would get something to eat and finally wander to Reflex. Finally I was going to get up and dance properly.

We arrived at the pub which to me looked nothing outstanding from the outside, just an ordinary pub with two door men and nothing more. I was surprised there wasn't even a queue to get in the pub but we were charged £2 each to get in. not a lot of money but I did grudge having to pay it seen as the pubs back home you don't get charged but all the same we paid it and went in.

My first impression was not as good as I thought it would be, the room seemed really small and way too over crowded. I decided not to complain and just get into the spirit of things we were on a hen night in a City after all, I'm sure it's always like this and I'm just not used to it being from the sticks.

We went over to a small bar to order our drinks, it really didn't look like the main bar as it wasn't well staffed and there wasn't much room. We all decided to stick to the same drinks and whilst my friend was waiting to order I notice this huge over-sized glass that people were ordering which had some red cocktail concoction in it. I decided I wanted to try one so it was added to the list of drinks we were ordering.

Thankfully the prices in here were pretty much the same as every other bar. Some bars did have offers on but Reflex stuck to the normal prices which wasn't too bad but so far there was nothing really tempting me to stay for more than one drink. Finally we got our drinks and the only place we could stand together was at the top of the stairs that head to the toilets, that really wasn't fun.

Eventually we found a seat which was through an archway at the back of the room, it was a darker room which seemed to have people sitting chilling out as if it was almost quieter than the rest of the bar. The seating was really comfy with big leather couches and it gave me time to take in my surroundings a bit more.

I could now see that there was a slightly raised dance floor which had a DJ playing all the music, everyone was crowding round the DJ booth requesting songs to be put on. Up in the ceiling there was several glitter balls and other decorations that I couldn't make out.

Behind the bar I noticed there was quirky stuff for sale including sunglasses, Madonna boobs and light up things like head boppers. I thought that it was a really good idea to have things as they are bound to have loads of hen parties etc that will want to buy things. Fortunately the girls had already dressed me up from head to toe. The price for these items was really cheap starting at about £2.50. Which I thought was a bargain.

Ok so I've now finished my drinks and I began to relax a lot more. The music on started to get better (or maybe the drink was making me think it was better!) We all got up and started dancing, in this back bit of the room we had so much space to move about compared to the dance floor and everyone getting squashed at the bar.

The music was all 80's and I knew them all so I spent most of my time dancing, then all of a sudden the room was flooded with people, the door men were still allowing people in and I felt it was way too crowded for the size of room it was. We decided shortly afterwards to head back to one of the other pubs as we had enough of being squashed which was a shame as it was a great bar for music.

Highlights

My highlights of the visit to Reflex were the over-sized drinks. In these glasses who wouldn't want one? We shared ours but most people had one each!! (cheap night out!)

The music - the music was brilliant and got us all on our feet dancing, it couldn't have been a better choice of songs and it really starts the night off well.

The goodies you can buy - thought this was great at such a low price, definitely worth buying as a wee souvenir for a hen or stag night.

The staff - They were all really friendly. The service was pretty quick even though there was a lot of people to serve. They also always had a smile on their faces.

Cleanliness - I couldn't believe that they where forever coming round and clearing empty glasses from the tables which was really good, this meant your table was surrounded in other peoples glasses and you didn't know which glass was yours.

Not so good parts

Unfortunately there was a couple of things that I wasn't too impressed with which I've already mentioned but to sum up;

Paying to get in - I noticed a lot of bars had a charge to get in and although it's not much, it fairly adds up if you decide to go to a few bars in one night like we did.

The size of the pub - For this place to be so popular with people I would've expected it to be a lot bigger than it actually was. The place got very over-crowded and I began to feel claustrophobic being in there, this was the main reason we left.

Over-friendly staff - The staff were really lovely but I don't know how many times I spotted the guy collecting glasses kissing a girl (and not always the same one!) For me it was funny to watch but for others mainly jealous girls it could've caused a bit of hassle

Overall

It was a great experience to visit a bar like this. It was a good laugh and I enjoyed dancing and loved my big glass of cocktails. It's certainly different to bars I've been to before and I would probably go again if it wasn't so crowded.