I'm not necessarily toast by 2am, but I made a rule for myself that I must go to bed at 2am most nights, and stop drinking at 1am. From experience, staying up until 5am tends to get 'messy drunk' and invokes the hangover from hell the next day, or I don't make it down to the pool until well after lunch. Even if I stop drinking but still stay up beyond 2am, I'm still tired the next day and it messes up my routine. It seems fun at the time, but a few more hours late night party isn't worth missing out on half a day in the sunshine. 2am is the sweet spot. I know some manage both late night and early rise, by taking a nap in the afternoon, but I can't turn my brain off enough to do that - with exception of a Boobs Cruise day. I can easily pass out for a few hours after a cruise, it has that effect on you. My routine generally goes - wake up at 9, spend an hour recouping from excesses of the night before (lots of water, maybe a coffee, shower, clean up whatever theme wear mess has been strewn all over the room from night before). Down at the pool by 11, order fruit juice and ice drinks (no alcohol) for a couple hours. 1 or 2pm grab something to eat, then on to proper drinking at the pool until around 4pm. At 4 I stop drinking and head back to the room, let husband have a rest whilst I people watch from the balcony. I get ready for evening around 5:30pm. I get ready early because I like to grab a drink at the pool bar before dinner, around 6:30pm right before it closes. 6 to 7pm is that strange switch-over hour, where most people have gone back to their room, but there's typically a few day-drunk people left, and you meet some really interesting characters at the bar around that time. I'll get dinner around 8pm, then into theme attire and back at Bash before the show at 10pm. Party hard until 2am. Rinse and repeat every day. This is the routine that has me at my best most days. I've done the 'stay up all night and power through with hair of the dog the next day' thing. That works for a while, but it's messy, and by evening you crash and burn and miss the rest of the night. I've also done the 'don't drink until dinner' thing, which is ok, but feels like those days are never quite as fun as the days where I drink at the pool. I sometimes miss the wild nights I've had at Paty O, drinking the bar dry until 5am, night swims at the sports pool etc. but this is a compromise I've come up with to not ruin whole days from massive hangovers.
