Martin Family Reunion Cruise 2025- Part 1

 This summer was the time for our Martin Family Reunion, and this year we decided to go on a cruise to Catalina Island and Ensanada, Mexico! Our family drove from home to St. George the first night of the trip (we couldn't leave until after Primary Day Camp that afternoon). We stayed at a place that had a fun mural on the wall:

The next morning we were off for California!

We checked in to our hotel near the cruise pier, and we ended up having dinner at this cute little diner nearby:

There was this fun sculpture nearby:

Then we went to a little beach (Mother's Beach) at an inlet on the coast, where the kids had playing at the park:

Then we went to Seal Beach, where there were real waves and beautiful scenery with the sunset:

The kids had a blast playing there and didn't want to leave:

The next morning our kids had a great time swimming in the hotel pool together:

Then around lunchtime we were able to board the cruise ship! We started with the delicious lunch buffet:

Then we all went on the onboard slide. Ivy was scared at first, but got brave and had a great time on the slide!

The kids won an onboard family game with my parents, where they won these fun hats:

Everyone came to watch karaoke, and most of our group participated in a song:

We went to the formal dinner every night, and the kids had some good experiences with trying different foods, like escargot. Zane and Hyrum both tried it!

The next morning we wore our matching family shirts, and it was fun to have people all over the ship recognize our family. The back of our shirts had different "most likely to" phrases which was super fun. Ryan's said "most likely to want to see the fish," mine said, "most likely to be on the dance floor," Hyrum's said "most likely to get sunburned," Cora's said "most likely to take a picture of the towel animals," Zane's said, "most likely to wake up first," and Ivy's said, "most likely to make a new friend."

The kids loved having all you can eat bacon at the breakfast buffet:

The littles tried the rock climbing on the ship, which was a bit harder than they expected but they made a valiant effort:

We found this sitting soccer game that the kids enjoyed:

Ivy, Zane and their cousin went mini golfing:

While we were mini golfing, the big kids and other family did the ship's escape room. They beat it with 19 minutes left!

We played some cartoon theme trivia:

We didn't win, which was kinda sad:

Zane got to play soccer with kids from all over the world in the little sport court:

We got a cute towel animal:

And everyone had fun hanging out together:

Family pictures!

Grandpa Martin entered the belly flop contest as the oldest contestant and he won! This made him quite the celebrity onboard and so many people stopped him to congratulate him the rest of the cruise:

We went ice skating onboard too:

That night was formal night, and it was fun to dress up:

After dinner we went to the Silent Disco, which was probably my favorite part of the whole cruise:

We ended the day at sea with an amazing ice skating show that also had a really cool drone show integrated in! It was so cool!