Meet the Cast

Alaska 2016/Who's Who

This turned out to be a wonderful family adventure.

It started with the Core Four
Me (D), my wife (E), and our two sons (R and A). We're from San Jose, California and this is our 3rd cruise. I'm an IT Director with a large global software company, E is Chief Clinical Dietician with the VA, and the boys had just finished 10th and 5th grades at the time of the trip.

We did the Western Caribbean on Oasis of the Seas during Summer 2014, then a quick Bahamas trip on Enchantment of the Seas during a school break in Fall 2015. I had an ulterior motive when we tried Oasis. If it turned out that we enjoyed ourselves enough to try another cruise I knew that Alaska, a long-time bucket list trip for me, was going to be the destination. We decided that cruising wasn't the BEST vacation we'd ever taken, but it turned out to be the most RELAXING, so that was good enough.

The Next Three
I had been talking up the idea of going to Alaska with the rest of the family for a while, and early converts to the idea were my sister (S) and her husband (W). They are from Palo Alto, California. S is a former clinical psychologist who now teaches math in middle school, while W is a Professor of Chemistry at Stanford (and a 2014 Nobel Prize winner for Chemistry...I get very few opportunities to write that, but it never gets old)!

Also early to sign up - with some persistence on our part - was Eileen's mother J. This was a very long-delayed trip for her - she and my father-in-law had been planning an Alaskan trip 16 years ago just before his unexpected death. A chance to go with one of her five kids and two of her grandchildren was attractive enough to get her to sign up for this trip, however.

The Reluctant Two
Next to sign up were Eileen's brother (M) and his wife (C). I say "reluctant", but in fact they were simply waiting until the trip became a reality before committing themselves. They ended up booking a cabin about 4 days after I booked for the seven of us. They live in Cupertino, California. M is just-retired physicist from the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, while C is semi-retired from a high tech company where she was a financial executive. M&C had previously been to Alaska, about 25 years before, back in the early days of their marriage when they spent the trip doing camping and biking.

The Surprise Two
About four weeks after we'd done the initial bookings, C mentioned in passing "oh, did I tell you that N and H are coming?" Well, no, C, you hadn't - but that's fantastic news! They are M&C's daughters. N lives in Denver, Colorado, where she is a program manager for Habitat for Humanity, while H lives in Portland, Oregon where she is in social services. The girls (along with M&C) have traveled widely throughout the globe.

So from modest beginnings the Core Four turned into a group of 11 family members, spanning three generations. We now had grandma, two of her 5 kids, and 4 of her eight grandkids.

The Final Line-up:

      J
    |
    |================|
W-----S=====D-----E                M-----C
               |                      |
R=====A    N=====H

==: Siblings
--: Spouses

So, in the end my (D's) mother-in-law (J) traveled with 2 of her 5 children (E&M), their spouse's (D&C). and 4 of her 8 grandchildren (R,A,N,H). D's sister S and her husband W rounded out the group.