One of the reasons we went to Southeast Asia was to spend time with my in-laws. My husband Chimmy is Chinese, born and raised in Taiwan until his parents sent him to the U.S. to escape the rigors of the Taiwanese school system and have a "normal" childhood.  He went to live with an aunt in South Carolina. As you can imagine, a new Asian kid in a junior high in the South has anything but a "normal" experience.  But what doesn't kill you, makes you get away as far as you can, and he eventually moved to San Francisco for grad school, and we met and married some time thereafter. His folks still live in Taiwan, and we hadn't seen his dad since our wedding over four years ago, so we decided to spend some quality time with "lao ba" and "lao ma". Since Chimmy still lives in fear of the mandatory two-year Taiwanese military duty he might incur by setting foot on his homeland, we decided to meet up with them elsewhere.  I knew I wanted to spend a week in Malaysia by ourselves, so we booked a flight with an additional week in Singapore, and asked his parents to plan it as they saw fit. Chimmy's dad used to work all over Indonesia and Malaysia so I eagerly awaited getting the inside scoop of the area, meeting all sorts of locals, and learning about the culture firsthand.To my surprise, he booked a six day, five night cruise from Singapore to Bangkok. At first, this was a huge bummer. Who wants to fly to the other side of the world to be stuck on a ship for a week? But given the circumstances, I came to realize this was probably the best way to travel with in-laws. Yes, the ship was cheesy (see my review on Star Cruises), yes, the food was bland and the entertainment lousy, and no, we didn't see much of Thailand. But after experiencing the anxiety of some freedom in bustling Bangkok with the parents breathing down our necks asking where we were going and what we were doing and why don't we just go back to the air-conditioned mall the tour company dropped us off at...after that, we ran back to the boat with open arms. A cruise offers a security and flexibility that allows families to travel together without the hassle of actually traveling together. Chimmy and I could lay by the pool or get massages or catch up on much needed sleep or karaoke all night long while his folks gambled, and then just meet up for meals. It is a stress-free setting for seeing each other only as much as you want to. A bonus for the parents is that the pushy photographers take posed photos of you at every turn to document what a good time you're having, which in-laws can take proudly back home to show off to their friends. I would never have chosen a cruise, but it turned out to be a very wise move on his old man's part.