Awe Ship! It's a Family Trip. Washburn Family Disaster 2023 Cruise Part 1

 This year Grandma Washburn wanted to do something special with the whole family, so she decided a big family vacation is what we needed! We went on a weeklong cruise to the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and the Bahamas (followed by another week at Disney World, but I'll get to that later). Overall the cruise was fun, but I would not take young kids on a cruise ever again. It was so hard to get them to follow rules or to stay quiet or happy all the time. There were many things to do onboard that included lots of different trivia games, music, theater, ice shows, swimming, mini golf, arcade, climbing structures, and kids clubs.

We're off!

The whole family!

Grayson just came for the all-you-can-eat ice cream 24/7

These two were supposed to be in bed, and they got caught playing video games instead.

Eating dinner in the dining hall was always a mess with the kids. They were so bored and tired that they were unruly and not fun to eat with, but we always had one or two who would zonk out on their chairs.

I took this picture of the strawberry moon over the sea. It was gorgeous to look at in person.

We had two dress up nights in the dining hall. On the second one we didn't care what the kids wore as long they had pants on. The first time was too much of a hassle to get them to wear their church clothes. Anyway, I didn't see what Zander put on until we got there and he decided to wear his camp pants with his church shoes and socks. It made me laugh.

We signed Lucas and Hannah up for a cupcake making class. They learned how to make a frog on a lily pad with fondant and how to pipe frosting on a cupcake.