Living like James Bond, on Paradise Island, Bahamas

IMAGINE WINNING A HOLIDAY WORTH £85,000...

This is just what happened to comper, 29 year old Paul McGettigan back in March last year when comping completely changed his life.

 

On the tube on the way to work Paul saw a competition in the free paper Metro for a holiday worth…£85,000!  It sounded absolutely amazing… first class flights to Miami, a private jet transfer to the Bahamas and then seven nights in the famous, exclusive ‘Bridge Suite’ at Atlantis on Paradise Island. 

 

The comp was sponsored by Sony.  As some of the Bond film Casino Royale was filmed there, the idea was that the winner got to live like James Bond for the week! 

 

Of course he entered immediately – and got his girlfriend to enter too.  About a week later he was called by someone from the paper.  “As soon as I heard the word Metro,” Paul told me, “I remembered the comp and asked if I’d won.  When the guy said yes I was literally speechless!”  Over 300,000 people entered this competition because of the amazing prize, so no wonder Paul’s girlfriend, refused to believe him when he first told her he’s won.

 

The details of the prize were emailed over straight away, so they could get excited about this out-of-this-world prize. They were given a choice of weeks to go, and decided on October (just as it started getting colder over here). As the months went by they could barely think of anything else and on the day they left, they were like kids on Christmas morning.

 

The flights were with Virgin, and they got to use their Upper Class lounge at Heathrow. “It’s like a five-star hotel!” says Paul. “After a champagne breakfast I had a shave and a massage and my girlfriend had a facial, all free of course!”  It’s going to be hard for them to go back to Economy class now. 

 

When they landed in Miami, a limo took them to a private jet for the transfer to The Bahamas. It was just Paul, his girlfriend and the pilot. Paul even got to sit in the co-pilot seat for the landing.

 

Another limo then met them and took them to Atlantis.  Their suite was right in the centre of the exclusive resort. The Bridge Suite has ten rooms over 5,000 square feet and costs $25,000 per night!  It’s usually only used by American megastars like Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan or by rich Arab Royals. 

 

The reality only began to sink in as their butler (he was included in the prize) showed them around the resort and they saw the sheer scale of it. Underground they have the world’s largest aquarium which uses sea water and outside the world’s biggest water park.

 

As part of the prize, Paul and his girlfriend got to try a different activity every day and given the full VIP treatment.  One day they had five hours of pampering in their spa; they could hardly walk as they left as we were so relaxed.  They also spent a day on an America’s Cup Yacht and a day swimming with dolphins. The highlight for Paul was scuba diving.  He and his girlfriend had never done this before, but were taken out on their own boat with two instructors, so they picked it up really quickly.  After learning the ropes, they went on a 40 minute dive to about 30 metres.  “We saw so many fish, beautiful coral, a very scary looking barracuda and even a massive stingray,” Paul recalls, “It was fantastic”.

 

Food wise, every meal was superb, especially when they ate at the resort’s own ‘Nobu’ restaurant, where the chef prepared a seven course taster menu for them both. They’ve never enjoyed a meal so much.

 

As they came to the end of the week they realised that they would never have a week like this again in their lives. But with so many photos and memories, they will never forget it.  They even ended up swapping emails with their butler and some of the other staff, promising to try to go back one day.  “They said they’d give us a good rate,” laughs Paul, “but I think we’d have to forget about the Bridge Suite!”

 

After Paul won this amazing holiday, lots of his friends have started comping too (are you surprised?) as they now realise people really do win. Since he started comping Paul has won more brilliant prizes, including tickets to the 2006 World Cup – with a private jet to Frankfurt and a day playing football on the Wembley Stadium pitch (he even scored a goal).

 

Paul enters around 40 competitions a week, both in the post and on the internet and certainly has no intentions of stopping. He has had some of the best experiences of his life thanks to his hobby, and now many of his friends are too. You really never know what fantastic prize is going to come round the corner for you – you just need to make sure you get your entries in.