7 Things I Learned From Winning a Travelzoo Giveaway

Our competition winner, Emily Wilson, has returned from her trip to Fundu Lagoon, on Pemba Island, Zanzibar. Below she runs through what it's like to hit the holiday jackpot, and the seven things she learned from her seven nights on the tropical island. 

And when you've finished reading her account, follow the link at the bottom of the page for our latest sweepstakes, with a prize worth nearly £9k! Now, over to Emily...

About a year ago, I had a very strange day. I woke up, went to work. So far, so normal. I checked my email. I saw one of those emails saying I'd won something or other. Right, that's spam. And into the trash folder it goes - or it would have, if the email didn't look so legitimate and I hadn't remembered I’d entered a competition recently. So I opened it.

1. People actually win competitions

I texted my husband: “I think we won a trip to Zanzibar.” A number was listed on the email, and I called it, expecting a lonely, metallic dial tone. Someone picked up. She knew who I was. She confirmed she was a real person. She confirmed we had won seven nights on Pemba Island, just north of Zanzibar's main island. I texted him again. “It's legit. We're off to Zanzibar.”

Then we chose dates. We told our friends. Everyone said, “People actually win those? I thought it was just a marketing ploy.” Yes, people actually win and this would be our destination:

2. Flying business is so much better 

Our 7-night stay in Fundu Lagoon included business-class flights with Qatar Airways. Pre-flight, I drooled over images of the lie-flat seats and discovered the flight attendants give you sleep suits for night flights. They're basically PJs, but referring to them as sleep suits makes you sound more like you're an astronaut in training.

What we didn't realise is the experience of business class - from checking in and security to boarding the plane - makes flying relaxing. It felt like we were on holiday immediately, rather than just on arrival.

3. City-break obsessives can also enjoy beach holiday resorts 

“This is an amazing holiday, but I'm afraid I'll get bored,” my husband said when we were packing. Neither of us is the type of traveller who goes on holiday for a rest. We don't bother paying any more than we have to for a hotel because we're only in the room to shower and collapse from exhaustion. Now, I'm not the type to rub it in. However, he was wrong.

Fundu Lagoon is on a classically beautiful, untouched stretch of sand on Pemba Island and offers just enough to do. We went on a walking tour of the local villages and tried snorkelling. We saw dolphins before breakfast. We went for walks at low tide and found little fish in the shallows and explored the mangroves. We watched a local monkey troupe go about its daily business. Not once were we bored.

4. No TV? No internet? No problem

Internet and TV are available in Fundu Lagoon, just not in your room. We checked our email once or maybe twice a day but didn't even look inside the TV room. Instead, we actually talked to each other and simply enjoyed each other's company without distractions. We relaxed. We stretched in the sun like lazy cats. After lunch, we read until it got dark. We went to dinner, which was always amazing and changed location throughout the resort - once it was a BBQ on the beach. We walked back to our room, hoping to see our bush-baby friends leaping across the branches above the path, but more often just heard them chattering to themselves.

5. Do not underestimate the entertainment value of land crabs

Now hear me out. I know you won't read about this in guidebooks. You might not see them unless you look. The crabs keep to themselves. In fact, I think they'd prefer just staying in their holes rather than risk having to look at such uncivilised species as ours shining a flashlight at them and giggling like children.

However, if you do want to find the crabs, listen for eight legs making an ungodly noise in the leaves. Then, when your light finds one, the crab gives you a dirty look. Its claws slowly rise, like when two gentlemen fight in old movies, and it slowly scuttles towards its hole. You'll walk a few more steps and hear another set of legs panicking in the undergrowth. It was always funny.

6. A luxury resort on an untouched island doesn't need to hurt the environment (including humans) 

I was under the impression that a luxury resort in some faraway place surrounded by poor villages could be nothing but socially irresponsible. It could only be somewhere investors reap high returns from cheap land and cheap labour - somewhere the locals don't reap much, if any, benefit at all.

Fundu Lagoon doesn't operate this way. The little things - like the fact that 70% of the staff were from the local villages and the guests' tips are pooled and shared equally with front-of-house and back-of-house staff - are responsible. The big things, like raising funds and working with the village elders to build infrastructure, ensure that the local communities see a tangible return from the resort. It strikes the right balance between creating a luxurious, relaxing atmosphere and making a positive difference to the lives of the people who live there, who are so entwined in and essential to making the resort and Pemba special.

7. There is a paradise on earth. It's called Pemba Island

Pemba Island is gorgeous. If you could choose a deserted island to wash up on from a shipwreck (well, one with a luxury resort like Fundu Lagoon), this is the place you would want to be stranded for an indefinite period. The untouched beach, which we basically had to ourselves; multiple locations to lounge in the sunshine; and the food and all of the lovely staff to whom I was very attached by the end of the week all combined into a trip of a lifetime, a paradise on earth.

It helped that the biggest decision I had to make each day was what I wanted to eat for dinner, and the most work my brain had to do was to try to remember the constellations in the millions of stars I could see from our deck, but it was more than that. Fundu Lagoon felt like a home away from home. It felt like a second honeymoon. It felt like we got away from it all.

So now you know - people really do win these things! Up for grabs right now is a luxury trip around Ireland worth nearly £9k. Enter before the end of November