In this guide
Three of London’s best cocktail bars will not take your booking. Swift says it in writing at all three of its rooms, Nightjar takes groups only from Sunday to Thursday, and Cirque le Soir turns away groups that are not mixed. Meanwhile the venues that do want you have a different trap: Flight Club will not accept a booking of fewer than six after 4pm from Wednesday to Saturday, and Puttshack splits any group over six across separate tee times.
Group-size policy and the real cost of an evening are what sink a hen weekend, and almost nobody writes them down — the sites that rank for this sell packages rather than tell you Bounce is £6 a head.
Every price and policy below was read off the operator’s own website on 3 September 2026.
💡 The Short Version: Swift refuses hen parties at all three of its bars and runs a 21-and-over door. Ballie Ballerson is £8 a head in the ball pit on a Sunday and £16 on a Saturday, with a £300 minimum spend on a booth for 16. BAM Karaoke Box lets the bride go free in a group of ten. A private Thames Rockets speedboat for twelve is £57.92 a head — cheaper than the £59.95 public ticket. And Bodean’s BBQ, on half the hen-do listicles, has closed.
What it costs, at a glance
Prices are per person for a group of twelve, from each operator’s own booking page.
| Activity | Price pp | Duration | Group size | Book ahead by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Life drawing, Butlers in the Buff | From £13 | 90 mins | Up to 20 | 3 weeks |
| Mini golf, Puttshack Bank | £9.50 off-peak, £14 peak | 30 mins | Max 12 online | 3 weeks |
| Crazy golf, Swingers West End | £12 to 5pm, £16 after | 40 mins | Max 24 online | 8 weeks |
| Darts, Flight Club | £10 | 90 mins | Min 6 after 4pm Wed–Sat | 4 weeks |
| Bottomless brunch, Bounce, Battersea | £30 | 90 mins | Min 6 for a package | 3 weeks |
| Bottomless brunch, Electric Shuffle | £38 | 2 hours | 2 to 32 | 3 weeks |
| Bottomless brunch, Ballie Ballerson | £45 Thu/Sun, £65 Sat | 90 mins | £300 min spend at 16 | 3 weeks |
| Fairground games, Fairgame City | £22 off-peak, £25 prime | 90 mins | 1 to 15 online | 3 weeks |
| Crystal Maze LIVE, Piccadilly Circus | £26.50–£58 | 75 mins | Teams of 8 | 4 weeks |
| Escape room, Mission: Breakout, Camden | From £28 | 60 mins | 3–6 a room, 18 max | 4 weeks |
| Karaoke package, BAM Victoria | £45 (£62.50 with food) | 2 hours | 4 to 40 | 4 weeks |
| Speedboat charter, Thames Rockets | £57.92 for 12 | 60 mins | 8 to 12 | 4 weeks |
| Immersive dinner, Murdér Express | £60 (carriage of 6) | 2 hours | Min 2 | 6 weeks |
Daytime, by type
Cocktail making, which is the default for a reason
The Cocktail Club charges £40 a head for a two-hour masterclass — bubbly on arrival, two cocktails you make yourself from a choice of Pornstar Martini, Espresso Martini, Bramble or Mojito, then a daiquiri challenge. It runs across nine London bars: Old Street, Oxford Circus, Shoreditch, Shaftesbury Avenue, Monument, Mansion House, Goodge Street, Liverpool Street and Canary Wharf, which means one of them is near wherever you are staying. The minimum group size is not published, so ring if you are fewer than eight.
Laki Kane on Oxford Street is the other one worth knowing, and it is unusual in saying out loud that it is built for hen parties — its own site claims 500-plus celebrations a year. The rum-making experience runs every Saturday at 2pm and the tropical cocktail masterclass every Friday and Saturday at 6pm, with bookings taken up to a month ahead.
Life drawing
From £13 a head for groups of up to 20, which makes it the cheapest structured activity in this guide. Butlers in the Buff runs 90 minutes: 45 minutes of drawing and 45 minutes of butler service, with a 30-minute extension at £50 for the group rather than per head.
The catch is that the venue is not included. They come to you or help you find a room, so budget a private area on top — which is why this works best bolted onto an apartment you have already booked, or a bar’s function room, rather than as a standalone booking.
Ball pits, ping pong and mini golf
Ballie Ballerson on Curtain Road is the one that has become shorthand for a Shoreditch hen do, and the pricing is unusually honest about it. The ball pit — 100,000 clear balls over 20,000 LEDs, mirrored on every side — is £8 a head Sunday to Thursday, £12 on Friday and £16 on Saturday. Bottomless brunch is £45, £49 and £65 across the same three bands, and the private karaoke room, which holds ten and has a pole in it, is £19 to £39.
The number to plan around is the booth minimum spend: nothing for two to seven people, £100 for eight to fifteen, and £300 for sixteen or more. A booth is free to reserve and you buy food and drink at the venue, so an organiser who does not fancy collecting £40 from twelve people six weeks early can book this without any admin at all.
Bounce at Battersea Power Station is £6 a head, the cheapest real activity in London, with bottomless brunch at £30 and group packages including food and drink from £20 a head for a minimum of six. Puttshack at Bank is £9.50 off-peak and £14 at peak, has no dress code whatsoever, and puts six people on a hole — so a twelve plays in two flights, one after the other, not together. Twelve is also its online ceiling; thirteen and up is an enquiry form. The competitive socialising guide compares the whole category, including which rooms have closed.
Afternoon tea, and where not to have it
The grand hotels run £75 to well over £100 a head, and for twelve people that is a £1,200 morning. The Wolseley is £46.50 and takes walk-ins more readily than any of them. Better still, the museums do it properly and cheaply: the British Museum is around £40 under the Foster roof, and Tate Modern around £30 with the river through the window. Under £30, the Memoir Club and the Chocolate Cocktail Club both start at £27.50. If the room is the point, Sketch is £95 — the full comparison is in the afternoon tea guide.
On the water
A private Thames Rockets charter for twelve is £695, which is £57.92 a head — less than the £59.95 you would each pay for a public sailing. That is the rare case where the group rate genuinely beats the individual one, and it is worth knowing because on a public departure a group of twelve will not always travel together unless it is pre-arranged. Boats leave from London Eye Pier, Boarding Gate One, SE1 7PB, two minutes from Waterloo, and run 60 minutes. Minimum eight passengers on any sailing.
⚠️ Check this before you book a boat. Thames Rockets prohibits pregnant passengers at any stage. On a hen weekend that is not a hypothetical, and it is not obvious until you are at the pier.
Immersive games
The Crystal Maze LIVE Experience at Piccadilly Circus is £26.50 to £58 for about 75 minutes on your feet, in teams of up to eight — so a twelve splits into two teams. It also prohibits participation at any stage of pregnancy, and enforces a minimum age of nine.
Race Across The World: The Experience is the underrated one: £35 an adult with no booking fee, teams of two to eight playing privately, two to three hours and about five kilometres on foot around the City with no public transport allowed. It is a walking tour that does not feel like one, and it costs less than most brunches.
Monopoly Lifesized in Fitzrovia is from £54, teams cap at six, and it has the strictest arrival rule in London: no latecomers at all. With twelve people and one taxi running late, that is a real risk.
The evening
Bars, and the three that will say no
Swift refuses hen parties in writing at all three London bars — Soho, Borough and Shoreditch. The wording is identical on every page: “Sorry, but we are unable to accommodate any stag or hen parties.” On top of that, every Swift is 21 and over, sports clothing is refused, and Swift Soho will not take a booking greater than six people.
Nightjar in Shoreditch takes group bookings of up to 20 — but only Sunday to Thursday, with a pre-order and a minimum spend. There is no Friday or Saturday group booking there at all, which catches out anyone who reads a “best bars for big groups” list without checking the date.
Cirque le Soir on Ganton Street states that groups must be mixed, and is 19-plus on Monday and Wednesday and 20-plus on Friday and Saturday. It publishes no entry price and no minimum spend, and takes table bookings only by phone or WhatsApp — which tells you how the pricing works.
If you want the good rooms without the argument, the cocktail bar guide sets out which ones take bookings at all. The short version for a group: the east London independents are more forgiving than the Mayfair hotel bars, and almost everywhere caps a booking somewhere between six and twelve.
Karaoke, which solves the group problem
BAM Karaoke Box on Victoria Street publishes a hen package, which almost nothing else does. Liquid Courage is £45 a head for two hours of private karaoke with prosecco or beer on arrival and two house drinks; Final Mic Drop is £62.50 with three drinks and food. Both are sold for groups of four or more, and in a group of ten or more the bride goes free. There are 22 rooms taking four to forty people, and you can build the playlist online in advance.
Two rules to note: no confetti, and no under-18s at all on Saturdays. Service charge is 12.5% on food and drink.
Bloomsbury Lanes has karaoke rooms for 8 to 30 people at £60 to £120 an hour, half price on Mondays, Tuesdays and Sundays — for twelve, the cheapest private room in central London. Simmons runs rooms for up to 25 at Greek Street, Old Street, Liverpool Street and King’s Cross.
Shows
Mamma Mia! The Party at North Greenwich is the big-night-out option: a four-course Greek sharing menu, a romance playing out around you, then the tables clear and it becomes an ABBA disco. Tier C is £120 off-peak and £154 at peak, off-peak meaning Wednesday to Friday evenings and Sunday. Tables are pre-allocated and you may be seated with strangers, and it is selling to April 2027.
Magic Mike Live is from £42 through the Hippodrome’s own channels — agents quote from £62 for the same seats, so book direct. For less money and more atmosphere, the Clapham Grand’s Mx Burlesque UK is £29.37 for the stalls or £40.70 for a VIP cabaret table for four, one of the few places where the table upgrade costs barely more than the ticket. The cabaret guide covers the rest, including the free ones, and Angel Comedy is free seven nights a week at The Camden Head — see the comedy club guide for how early to queue.
Free entry, no membership, open 24 hours: the Hippodrome Casino on Cranbourn Street costs nothing to walk into, which makes it a useful late fallback. Over-18s only on Challenge 25 — the casino guide has the rules.
Where to stay for 10 to 20
Book one place with beds in it, not twelve hotel rooms. The arithmetic and the atmosphere both improve.
Budget, about £45–£70 a head. Hostels with private-use rooms. Safestay Elephant & Castle at 144–152 Walworth Road, SE17 1JL, is seven minutes from the Northern and Bakerloo lines and does private rooms from eight to fifteen beds, with a group team handling ten to a hundred-plus guests. Wombat’s on Dock Street, E1 8LL, between Shadwell DLR and Aldgate East, is 18-plus with a minimum of 15 for a group booking. Clink takes group bookings from ten guests, with a 20% non-refundable deposit on anything over £1,000 and no outside alcohol.
Mid, about £90–£140 a head. Aparthotels are the right shape for this: your own kitchen, a living room to get ready in, no corridor. Locke has eleven London properties, including Leman Locke and Buckle Street Studios in Aldgate, Bermonds Locke by Tower Bridge and SACO Holborn. Point A has seven central sites — Canary Wharf, Kensington, King’s Cross, Liverpool Street, Paddington, Shoreditch and Waterloo.
Premium, £180 a head and up. Cheval Collection runs eight residences and one maison across 800-plus apartments in Kensington, Knightsbridge, Chelsea, Hyde Park, St Paul’s and by the Tower — full kitchens, and staff used to groups.
⚠️ Do not assume a whole-house short let. Greater London caps short-term letting at 90 nights a calendar year under the Deregulation Act 2015, and Airbnb automatically limits entire-home London listings to 90 nights unless the host has planning permission. Airbnb also bans parties outright — including “disruptive gatherings, regardless of size” — and blocks reservations it considers higher risk. A declined booking for twelve is usually this, not bad luck.
Where to base yourselves. Shoreditch and Old Street if the plan is Ballie Ballerson, Flight Club and a late night. King’s Cross for Electric Shuffle, Bloomsbury Lanes and the trains home. Waterloo and the South Bank if you are on the water. Elephant & Castle for the cheapest beds within one stop of everything.
Three weekends, costed
Per person, based on twelve people and the prices above. Travel assumes the £8.90 Zones 1–2 daily cap.
The £100 day and night, no hotel. Ping pong at Bounce (£6), bottomless brunch at Bounce (£30), Angel Comedy in the evening (free), a Bloomsbury Lanes karaoke room split twelve ways (about £10 each for two off-peak hours), £8.90 of travel and about £45 across dinner and drinks. Total £99.90 — and it is not a lesser day out.
The £231 Saturday with a bed. Cocktail masterclass at The Cocktail Club (£40), an early Swingers slot (£12), dinner at about £35, BAM’s Liquid Courage karaoke at £45 with the bride free, £8.90 of travel, £25 of drinks, and £65 a head for a private hostel room. Total £230.90. The bride going free at BAM saves the other eleven about £4 each.
The £433 premium weekend. A private Thames Rockets charter at £57.92, afternoon tea at the Wolseley (£46.50), Mamma Mia! The Party off-peak (£120), £40 of drinks, £8.90 of travel and £160 a head for two nights in an apartment. Total £433.32 — and the biggest line is the bed, not the activities, which is true of every version of this weekend.
On splitting it. Nothing here takes a group payment as standard: the operator wants one card, so the organiser fronts the money unless they collect first. Collect at the point you book and treat deposits as spent — Clink’s 20% is non-refundable, Swingers’ online tickets are non-refundable outright, Rocket Room refunds nothing inside seven days, and Boom Battle Bar charges £10 a head if you cancel inside 24 hours or turn up fifteen minutes late.
Package company or do it yourself
GoHen sells London hen packages from £159 a head, and it is worth understanding what that buys. London Baby at £159 is one night in a central three-star, a Beyoncé dance class, a bottomless brunch and queue-jump club entry. West End Hens at £259 is two nights, a cocktail masterclass with food, a theatre show and club entry. Deposit is £25 a head, the hens pay individually, and changes are allowed up to six weeks out.
Strip the accommodation out and the activities are not marked up. A bottomless brunch is £30 at Bounce, a dance class is a similar order, and club entry is small — which leaves roughly £100 to £115 a head for one central Saturday night, about what the room costs. You are not paying a premium for the activities; you are paying for one invoice, an individual payment system and a phone number.
What you give up is the choice of venue and the off-peak pricing that does most of the saving here — the difference between Swingers at £12 and £16, Ballie Ballerson at £8 and £16, Electric Shuffle at £10 and £13. Book A Party, which is what Fizzbox has become, says outright that it charges “no booking fees, the same price as going direct”. Use a package if the organiser’s time is worth more than the flexibility; book direct if you can move the plan to a Thursday, a Sunday or an afternoon.
The rules that actually decide the day
- Everybody taps their own card. Twelve people cannot share one, and mixing a phone and a physical card splits the capping. The Zones 1–2 daily cap is £8.90, buses and trams are £1.75 with a £5.25 cap, and the Hopper fare gives unlimited bus journeys within 60 minutes for one fare. Never buy a paper day Travelcard — it carries a £16.60 to £23.60 surcharge. See the transport costs guide and the Oyster card guide.
- Six Tube lines run all night on Friday and Saturday — Central, Jubilee, Northern, Piccadilly, Victoria and Windrush — at off-peak fares. Everything else stops around 00:30.
- A black cab home after 10pm costs 28% more a mile than at 6pm: Tariff 3 is £5.29 a mile beyond six miles against Tariff 1’s £4.13. Minimum fare £4.40.
- Nobody bans fancy dress by name, but the sportswear bans do the same job. Ministry of Sound refuses tracksuits, sportswear, caps, football shirts and face coverings. Tape refuses designer tracksuits, leggings, sliders and everyday trainers. Bat & Ball refuses tracksuit bottoms, gym wear, hats and work boots after 7pm. Rocket Room refuses tracksuits, gym wear and sandals at any hour.
- Bring physical ID, not a photograph of it. Fairgame and Tape both say so explicitly. Fairgame is 18-plus at every hour it opens. Rowans is over-21s only after 7pm on Friday and Saturday. Swift is 21-plus everywhere.
- Check the group ceiling as well as the floor. Online booking stops at 12 at Puttshack and Boom Battle Bar, 20 at Nightjar, 24 at Swingers, 32 at Electric Shuffle and 40 at BAM. Bunga 90 will not let a group of 21 or more book online at all — you have to ring.
- Leave the bags somewhere. Stasher is from £1.49 a bag a day, with 17 points at Euston, 28 around King’s Cross St Pancras, 27 at Paddington and 26 at Liverpool Street, and 70-plus open 24 hours.
- Bodean’s BBQ has closed. Its own website is now a single closure notice. It is still on most hen-do listicles as the group dinner answer; it is not one.
Continue planning your London trip
- 🎯 Competitive Socialising in London
- 🍸 The Best Cocktail Bars in London
- ✨ The Best Immersive Experiences in London
- 🎭 The Best Cabaret in London
- 🎤 The Best Comedy Clubs in London
- 🥂 Bottomless Brunch in London — 38 packages compared on price per minute
- 🚇 Getting Around London: The Transport Guide
This guide is independent and contains no paid placements. Every price, group limit and door policy was checked against the operator’s own website on 3 September 2026. Where a price is described here as not published, that means the venue itself does not state it — activity prices move with the day of the week, so confirm the band before you collect anyone’s money.
Common questions
How much does a hen do in London cost per person?
Costed from operators' own prices, £100 a head covers a full day and evening with no hotel, £231 adds one night somewhere central, and £433 buys a private speedboat charter, a dinner show and two nights in an apartment. The activity is rarely the expensive part — a ball pit is £8 a head and darts is £10. Accommodation and drinks are what move the number.
Which London bars refuse hen parties?
Swift says so in writing at all three of its bars — Soho, Borough and Shoreditch: "we are unable to accommodate any stag or hen parties". Swift Soho also caps bookings at six people and every Swift is 21 and over. Nightjar in Shoreditch takes groups of up to 20 but only Sunday to Thursday, so there is no weekend group booking there at all.
What is the cheapest hen do activity in London?
Bounce at Battersea Power Station is £6 a head for ping pong, and Ballie Ballerson's ball pit is £8 a head from Sunday to Thursday. Puttshack is £9.50 off-peak and Flight Club and Electric Shuffle both start at £10. Angel Comedy is free every night of the week.
Where should a group of 12 stay in London?
An aparthotel or a private hostel room, not a hotel with twelve separate rooms. Safestay Elephant & Castle does private-use rooms from eight to fifteen beds, Clink takes group bookings from ten people, and the Locke and Cheval apartment groups have eleven and nine London properties respectively. Whole-home short lets are scarce because Greater London caps them at 90 nights a year.
Do I need to book a hen do in London far in advance?
Swingers releases tickets two months ahead and its evening slots sell out. Mamma Mia! The Party is selling to April 2027. Everything else in this guide is bookable two to four weeks out for a Saturday, except restaurant tables for twelve, which want three to four weeks.
What works for a hen group with non-drinkers?
Most of the good options here are activities with a bar attached rather than drinking with an activity attached, so nobody has to explain themselves. Bounce, Puttshack, Electric Shuffle, the Crystal Maze, Race Across The World and an afternoon tea all work exactly the same sober. Bottomless brunches are the one format where a non-drinker pays for something they cannot use.
