Five sisters. Four husbands. Two aging parents. Nine children ranging in age from three to 16. That made 20 family members bound to a ship with no escape on a seven-day cruise. Would it be a trip to hell? Or the family vacation my parents had always dreamed of?

The planning started a year-and-a-half earlier, in summer. Tentative at first, but determined.

My mother had survived her second bout of breast cancer. Only this time, the cancer had metastasized, spreading to nearby lymph nodes in her armpits. The CT scan showed that the aggressive chemo and radiation treatments had no effect. Statistically, doctors said, she had a 50 percent chance of survival. The other 50 percent in the same condition died within five years.

There had been past attempts at a family vacation, but coordinating schedules and agreeing on the kind of holiday to take and where were overwhelming. This time, though, the tick of the clock was insistent. In September, the emails started in earnest.

Spring break seemed the logical time to go, with a teacher in the family who couldn’t take time off from class. Hawaii? Too long a flight for the kids. With emails flying back and forth between sisters, we decided on an all-inclusive Mexican Riviera cruise that required only a short, three-hour flight to Los Angeles.

Spring break was peak season. Christmas break was the less expensive option for a vacation that most of us didn’t really want to take. We’d all been to Mexico, and spending precious days off from work-driven schedules on a boat we thought was reserved for seniors was not a vacation dream. Perhaps we didn’t want to deal with reality.

We were finally aboard the Royal Caribbean’s Mariner of the Seas, dressed up pretty for dinner at our designated adults’ table—sisters in unplanned but similarly styled dresses, corresponding husbands, and two parents—with the children at the kids’ table a few feet away. The waiter came round again, instigating squeals among the children over magic tricks, relaxing the adults with another pour of wine.

There were three port stops on our cruise. In Cabo, we had just enough time to find a beach, have lunch, and return to the ship. Ditto in Mazatlán. In Puerto Vallarta, we walked seemingly for miles to find El Cid for a lunch of their famous buckets of shrimp. But it was the trip back to the ship terminal, in the back of an open truck with makeshift benches on either side (the only vehicle that could accommodate 20), singing loud to Culture Club’s “Karma Chameleon” blasting out of the truck’s outside speaker, that was most memorable.

There were other moments. About to disembark at our first port stop, all five sisters and mom pulled fruit grabbed from the breakfast buffet—unplanned again—out of their respective bags upon hearing the announcement that no fruit from the ship was allowed on Mexican soil. The brothers-in-law marvelled at how we all had the same idea; the kids wolfed down bananas, pears, and apples so the food wouldn’t be wasted. Family idiosyncrasies can either make or break a trip together. We made it.

While a cruise was not on any of our holiday wish lists, we learned that this type of vacation is ideal for large family gatherings. Everything is planned; all you have to do is show up. There are kids’ clubs and things to occupy people of all ages, such as wave pools, mini golf courses, rock-climbing walls, and running tracks. There are pre-dinner and post-dessert jazz bars, dance clubs, comedy shows, and family-friendly ice shows and musicals.

Our cruise line even allowed passengers to book private event rooms at no charge. We took advantage of that several times: to hold a family movie night and to celebrate New Year’s Day morning with the only Korean tradition left intact—bowing to the elders and a traditional board game. The evening before, the ship delivered glasses and champagne to a lounge area overlooking the ship’s celebrations below, so we could toast the new year together at the stroke of midnight.

But everyone in my family agreed that it was the set dinner time and family table that was the key to our vacation success. Never mind that the dinner menus rivalled top-notch restaurants and took away the stress of meal planning for a large group. It was the act of coming together over food and drink that brought us close not only physically but in spirit as well—so much so that we naturally spent the rest of the evenings and days together.

The cruise allowed us to establish a family-vacation rhythm. Earlier this year, we took a second family vacation—this one to a resort, so we could have more flexibility to customize excursions than a cruise offers. This time, it was a celebration. Just before that second trip, another CT scan showed that my mother’s cancer cells had disappeared. She was part of the lucky half.

My mother’s favourite part of the cruise? “We were all together to toast the new year with champagne.” It was the first time we had done so since we were children.
Yes, a new beginning—and the first of three-generational family vacations together.

ACCESS: Royal Caribbean’s Mariner of the Seas no longer cruises Mexico, but Holland America, Princess, and Carnival do. According to Meredith Hannesson, cruise counsellor of Expedia CruiseShipCenters, the least expensive times to go tend to be at the end of October and in early December. Group rates for the cruises, as well as airfare and insurance, are available.