The following story is about every cruise lover’s dream: to win a cruise holiday in a lottery. This is exactly what happened to Donald and Acquenella Gates of Covington recently. They were able to celebrate their 7th anniversary with a seven-day long Caribbean cruise on board a Royal Caribbean cruise ship after winning a scratch card game offered by the Georgia Lottery.

Acquenella was reportedly in seventh heaven after winning the scratch card game called Royal Caribbean for Cash, which was launched during spring last year.

She bought her ticket at an ordinary old BP Food Mart store in Covington. She was busy running an errand at the time, but she got distracted and ended up stopping at the gas station where she bought the winning ticket. She took it home before scratching it.

She says “About three more scratches and there was the ship sitting in the corner, Donald got two pairs of glasses and two magnifying glasses, including one with a light.”

The 56-year-old Acquenella and the 55-year-old Donald were married seven years ago. They celebrated their anniversary on the 26th June with their dream cruise holiday.

According to the lottery, the odds of wining the cruise holiday is one in 120,000.

Since its inception the Georgia Lottery has returned in excess of $12.5 billion to the Georgia state government to pay for educational programmes such as the HOPE Scholarship Programme and the Pre-K programme. More than 1.3 million students have benefited from HOPE and 1.1 million pre-school kids took part in the Pre-K programme.