Cheaters (Providence, RI)

Quality of dances (15/20) – The actual dances here aren't that great, but if you're looking for more than that, you'll find it. Actually, you don't even have to look. You'll be fighting off girls who are offering blow jobs and more from the second you walk in the door.

Quality of dancers (2/10) – In the afternoons, there are at least a few gems sprinkled in amongst the beasts. In the evenings, not so much.

Number of dancers (6/10) – There isn't a whole lot of quality to choose from, but there are somewhere around 20 girls working most of the time.

Variety/Diversity of dancers (4.5/5) – They come in all colors, shapes, and sizes at Cheaters.

Attitude of Dancers (0/10) – Every girl claims that the dances cost a different amount. They'll purposely miscount the number of songs that have played. They'll try to get you to prepay for dances. They'll leave in the middle of a song if they get called to the stage, and they'll still expect you to pay the full amount ("I'll just finish the dance at the stage"). And if you turn down their offers for extras, they'll insult you and say that you're a cheap bastard. And don't think that getting a dance will get them to stop with the sales pitch; they'll just try to get you to pay more to go to the nude room or to a private booth.

Value (2/10) - The $5 cover and $5 cans of beer are both reasonable, but all the crazy fees add up to make dances a very poor value. They no longer offer lap dances on the topless side of the club, so you're going to have to pay the $10 fee to get into the nude side before you can get any dances.  Then you'll have to buy a $10 ticket every time that you want to get a dance, so you're $20 in the hole before you even start negotiating with the girl about her fee. I was quoted anywhere from $20 to $50 per song, on top of the other charges. The songs are long, but you need to make them count as they go, because they'll overcharge you otherwise. If you're looking for more than dances, though, the price is much more reasonable.  It's still $10 to get to the nude side plus $35 for the booth and whatever you negotiate with the girl for pretty much whatever you want to do.  $100 seems to be pretty standard, though the few attractive ladies may ask for more than that.

Dance Setup (1/10) – Dances are given in a big open room that is visible to people in the nude part of the club. There are doors on the private dance booths, but I'm never in the mood to burn my clothes, so I still haven't personally checked the booths out.

Club Setup (2/10) - There's not much of anywhere to sit other than at the stage, where you'd have to tip one of the uglier women you've ever seen, or at the bar, where you'll be harassed until you get a dance or leave. There is a little more space upstairs, but there isn't usually much going on up there except some scary looking dudes playing pool.

Club Atmosphere (1/10) - This place has all the charm of a dark alley, which, coincidentally, is where most of the girls probably work when they aren't at the club.

Club Accessibility (3.5/5) – Cheaters isn't downtown, but it's just a short cab ride away.

Overall - Cheaters barely qualifies as a strip club, but if I have to rate it as one, I'd say it sucks. On the other hand, if you like streetwalkers but don't have the patience to drive around looking for them, you'll love this place.

TOTAL SCORE = 37

4Play (Budapest, Hungary)

Quality of Dances (11.5/20) – The dances are long, nude and full contact, so you should have a fairly good experience.  When I didn’t take the initiative with contact, the one girl grabbed my hands and moved them to her tits, and most of the time when I wasn’t rubbing them, they were rubbing up against my face.  Sadly, there isn’t much of a grind and the girls waste part of the dance lying on the floor to let you see what you’re paying to touch.  Overall, though, not bad. 

Quality of Dancers (7/10) – There was a wider range of girls at 4Play than I saw at the other Budapest clubs, with some girls being absolutely stunning, and others being either too old or too out of shape for this line of work.  

Number of Dancers (6/10) – There weren’t a ton of dancers working during my visit (probably in the high single digits), but considering the size of the club and the size of the crowd, it was more than sufficient. 

Variety of Dancers (1/5) – Despite the variety of body types and ages, every attractive lady in the place was young, thin, and white. 

Attitudes (4/10) – As with all of the other clubs in Budapest (and possibly Europe), you’re going to have to buy the lady an overpriced drink if you want any company, but at least at this place, they’ll give you the courtesy of a tiny bit of small talk before asking.  They’re fairly friendly overall, and I was impressed that they provided the full 10 minute lap dances even without knowing that I was timing them. 

Value (3.5/10) – 8000 HUF (~ $40 US) may sound like a lot to spend for a lady champagne, but that’s the best deal that you’ll find in Budapest.  For your own drinks, it will be 1000 HUF for the shitty Hungarian beer or 1400 HUF for a Pilsner Urquell, which, for the record, tastes infinitely better when not having been shipped across the Atlantic in a green bottle.  The menu also indicates that they have cheaper draft beer, but they told me that they ran out of that, so I suspect that they never actually have it.  There’s no cover and the topless stage action is adequate, so it’s possible to have a reasonably priced visit to 4Play, and even the dances aren’t too terrible, at 7000 HUF (~ $35 US) for 7 minutes or 10000 HUF for 10 minutes. 

Club Setup (1.5/10) – This club is in a basement, and they’ve done a very poor job of disguising that fact.  There are three rooms to the club: a room with a bar with tiny stools and a shower stage that’s as small as a stand-up shower that you’d find in a house; a room with a very small stage and a few tables; and the main room with a small 2-poled stage, no stage seating, and several uncomfortable chairs.  And the whole place is lit up so brightly that it just makes the awkwardness of a dead club even worse. 

Dance Setup (4/10) – Lap dances are given in a separate part of the club in what looks and feels like a wine cellar.  Sheer curtains partially obscure the bench that you sit on, but they inexplicably stop just before the customer, so the guy next to you will have a clear view of your dance.  Not that it matters, though, since there’s a video camera perched in plain sight above you, capturing your every move. 

Atmosphere (2/10) – I really wanted to like this place, but it was absolutely dead while I was there at 11pm on a Friday night.  They swore to me that things would pick up around 1am, but I had no interest in wasting the better part of a night in Budapest to see whether they were right.  I’m skeptical, because I went straight from here to Hallo Bar, and that place was hopping. 

Location (3.5/5) – The club is walkable from Marilyn Table Dance Bar, Hallo Bar, and many of the hotels on the east side of the Danube, but it’s a fairly long and uneventful walk from any of those places.  It seems like a safe enough area though.

Overall – If the atmosphere were a little more lively, I’d say that you should visit 4Play, but, as is, you won’t be making a huge mistake if you don’t get a chance to stop by.  Having said that, it’s not a bad club by any means.  I prefer Marilyn Table Dance Bar overall, but 4Play narrowly has the best prices and friendliest dancers in town. 

RAW SCORE = 44

Palace Club (Budapest, Hungary)

Quality of Dances (10.5/20) – The privacy leads me to believe that more may be available from some of the girls, but all of my dances had little to no grind and nothing extra was offered.  Still, they weren’t bad at all with the girls getting naked and encouraging upper body groping. 

Quality of Dancers (8/10) – Some of the ladies have a hard, stereotypical Eastern European look, but most of them are fairly attractive and would rate somewhere around a 7 on the 0-10 scale.  One girl was absolutely stunning, but I wouldn’t count on meeting her, and due to her attitude, you might be better off if you don’t. 

Number of Dancers (7.5/10) – For such a small club to have over a dozen ladies working was very impressive.  Every group of guys was joined by at least one lady, and several more were just waiting for the opportunity to pounce. 

Variety of Dancers (0/5) – If thin white girls aren’t your preference, you’re out of luck at this place, because that’s all they have.

Attitudes (0.5/10) – Things started off promisingly, with most of the girls sitting and chatting until the waitress came by to ask if I’d like to “buy the lady a drink.”  If a club insists on using the dancer drink business model, that’s the way they should do it, so that was appreciated.  Then, the girls were even friendly while sipping their drinks and chatting, but things went south once they started the lap dance sales pitch. With several girls, it followed the same pattern: get me to agree to one dance (which I was more than willing to do), then try to upsell me to get more expensive dance options.  That’s not totally unexpected, but one girl in particular got belligerent when I declined her offer of a 70,000 HUF dance (about $350 US).  I’d already dropped about 40,000 HUF on her by this point, but she spent the entire 10 minute long dance calling me cheap and asking why I couldn’t spend money like all the other guys (who, by the way, didn’t appear to be spending much of anything).  Initially, the truth was that I needed to save some cash so that I could sample multiple girls and make this a more accurate review, but by the end, I had the additional justification that she was being a huge bitch.  

Value (0/10) – This, and it’s sister club, P1, were the only places in Budapest where they tried to charge a cover charge.  Here, it’s normally 3000 HUF, though it’s a better deal to print out the coupon from their website that gets you entry and 2 hours of pen bar for 6000 HUF.  Even if you just have 2 beers, since they’re 1900 HUF each, you’ll come out ahead.  Still, it’s pretty insulting to be charged a any cover at a club where you’re expected to buy inflated dancer drinks that start at 18000 HUF and go way up from there.  And, to make matters worse, they pour a glass of champagne for you from the lady’s bottle so that it will go faster.  Basically, they use every move from the how-to-nickel-and-dime-your-customers handbook.  The dances are the only aspect of this club that are an ok deal, at 10,000 HUF for 10 minutes, but agreeing to that is really just opening you up for an aggressive sales pitch for dances that are several times that expensive.   

Club Setup (4/10) – When you enter the place from the street, you’d think that it’s just a very unpopular restaurant, but the club is downstairs in a room that almost feels like a miniature airplane hangar.  There’s bench seating along the wall and nin small tables in front of the bench, so everyone has a great view of what may be the smallest main stage I’ve ever seen.  It couldn’t be more than about 4 feet by 4 feet.  Needless to say, there are no crazy acrobatics going on up there.  There’s also a nice bar in this room and a separate room with a few booths and another small, unused stage, but everyone seems to stick with the bench seating unless the place is busy. 

Dance Setup (10/10) – Dances are given on couches in fairly large individual rooms that are enclosed by opaque curtains.  There are a lot of things that I dislike about this club, but I have absolutely no complaints about the dance setup. 

Atmosphere (6/10) – The crowd was good and the atmosphere, while somewhat low key, was pretty solid.  If you can ignore the pushier dancers, this isn’t a bad place to have a few beers.

Location (5/5) – Palace is located right behind St. Stephen’s Basilica and is within easy walking distance of the Chain Bridge and most of the main tourist attractions in town.  The closest strip club is this place’s sister club, P1, but if you’re looking for better alternatives, Hallo Bar and Marilyn Table Dance Bar are both easily accessible from here as well.    

Overall – Unless you’re willing to make some enemies by drinking heavily for the 2 hour open bar while rejecting most or all of the approaching ladies, I’d skip palace.  It’s designed to take money from uninformed tourists, but luckily that’s not you. 

RAW SCORE = 46.5

Darling Cabaret (Prague, Czech Republic)

Quality of Dances (19/20) – You won’t find dances much better than these.  If you opt for the 1500 czk version (~$75 US), tit sucking is encouraged and you get full two way contact, some aggressive stick shifting and some excellent grinding from a nude dancer.  If you want more than that, though, it’s available from most if not all of the ladies.  I was quoted 2400 czk for a blowjob or 3000 czk for sex, but I was just looking for dances, so I don’t know whether those prices are firm.  If they are, they’re on the high side for Prague, but you get what you pay for, because these ladies are stunning.

Quality of Dancers (9.5/10) – In a city of beautiful women, these are some of the best.  Nowhere, Darling included, can quite match Goldfingers’ A-team, but the ladies at this place are as good or better than any other club’s offering.  If you restrict the discussion to clubs where sex is openly available then it’s no contest – Darling comes out on top by a fairly wide margin.

Number of Dancers (9.5/10) – I don’t know that I’ve ever seen more girls per square foot in a stripclub than at Darling.  They’re everywhere, which is very nice on the eyes ,but can be a pain if you’re trying to relax since you’ll have to constantly fight off the approaching ladies. 

Variety of Dancers (0.5/5) – A room full of thin white girls usually bores me after a while, but when they’re this gorgeous, I’m not going to complain.  Still, half a point for a mix of hot blonds and hot brunettes is all that I can give. 

Attitudes (0.5/10) – I’ve been in plenty of clubs where I’ll buy a dance only to have the girl do an intentionally shitty job while trying to convince me to pay more so that “we can really have some fun.”  That wasn’t the case here, though, with all of the ladies giving a solid dance before making another attempt to get me to agree to one of the more intimate options.  Unfortunately, the fact that they deliver in the lap dance rooms is about the only good thing I can say about these ladies.  The sales pitch to buy that initial dance and an overpriced (~690 czk) lady drink is relentless.  It starts from the time you sit down until you leave, and many of the ladies won’t give up without you demanding that they go away, and even then they’ll throw in some parting shots about what a cheap bastard you are.  

Value (1.5/10) – They would love to rip you off, so be smart, leave your credit cards and ATM cards in your room, and pay as you go.  Just as an example of their bait and switch tactics, they have a sign outside advertising “free entry,” but they don’t tell you that it’s only to sit at a depressing little satellite stage that’s in a separate room from the actual club.  To get into the real club will cost you 300 czk, and each beer is another 300 czk, so you’re about $30 US in by the time you sit down.  Throw in a 690 czk lady drink and a 1500 czk dance, and you’re up to about $140 US.  The stage value is good and the sights are amazing, but you better bring some serious cash if you plan on staying long enough to really enjoy them. 

Club Setup (8/10) – Darling Cabaret is a beautiful two-story club.  Downstairs is the main stage and lots of seating, and upstairs is a lively balcony area overlooking the main stage.  There are more tables and small stages up there, plus there are a few bar areas throughout the club.  Whether you’re part of a large group or by yourself, the setup should provide you with somewhere excellent to take in the sights. 

Dance Setup (9/10) – The dance area is an elevator ride away from the main club, and you get your own private curtained room up there.  There are signs in the rooms indicating that there’s a no-contact zone between customers and dancers, but I thankfully can report that this is not enforced.

Atmosphere (6.5/10) – The hustling dancers do their best to ruin it, but otherwise, this place has an amazing party atmosphere on peak nights.  For a bachelor party or as part of a night out on the town, it would be pretty much perfect.  I found it to be a little more laid back on a Sunday night, but even then, it was a lot of fun.  As long as you’re either prepared to constantly drop cash on lady drinks or can make peace with the fact that you’re going to look like a cheapskate, you should have a good time.

Location (5/5) – Darling Cabaret is just steps away from Wenceslas Square and is directly across an alley from Atlas Cabaret.  It’s the ideal location for most visitors to Prague, and is particularly glorious if you stay next door at the very nice K+K Fenix Hotel. 

Overall – Darling Cabaret reminds me a lot of the Hong Kong club in Tijuana.  Sure, these women are white and the prices are significantly higher, but both places have great party atmospheres, amazingly hot girls everywhere you look, excellent lap dances, and readily available sex.  The big difference is the big drawbacks of each club: here, it’s aggressive, borderline belligerent dancers; at Hong Kong, it’s the possibility of being kidnapped, held for ransom and murdered by a cartel.  It’s kind of a tossup. 

You might ultimately find that you prefer Goldfingers or Cabaret Carioca to this place due to their less aggressive girls (though don’t expect to find anything more than lapdances at those places), but whether it’s for a bachelor party or just a fun night out, I’d plan to make a stop at Darling Cabaret a part of any visit to Prague. 

RAW SCORE = 69