It's a while since I read the book; and I don't have it to hand; but as I recall Charlie *did* bring his family with him. Certainly they were there in the Great Glass Elevator (I remember the grandparents floating around when they got into Space) - I suppose it's possible I'm amalgamating the two (but as bopeepsheep said, the GGE does follow directly on & isn't really sequelly, more another part of the same story). My recollection is also that Wonka did stay around, but that's definitely from the second book. (hrm: Wikipedia indicates that in fact the 2nd book didn't really finish the story either, but Wonka was still around at the end). Whether in that case they should have taken bits from the second one at all is of course another matter.