The Great Collins Family and Friends Anniversary Cruise

The Disney Magic

The Great Collins Family and Friends
Reunion and Anniversary Cruise

Imagine getting 33 family members and friends together for a cruise aboard the Disney Magic. Well, that's what we did to celebrate John and Mary Collins's 50th wedding anniversary, August 4, 2001. In addition, we celebrated Mark and Carolyn Collins Petersen's 23rd wedding anniversary on August 5, 2001, and several birthdays and Tony Galasso's promotion to the Technical Sergeant ranks in the Air Force!

The party included: John and Mary Collins, Mark and Carolyn Collins Petersen, Mary (Betsy) Collins, her sons Mike Jackson and son Matthew Jackson, accompanied by his wife Angie Jackson, Angie's sister Robin and her husband Terry, Margaret and Tom Wills and their daughters Katharine and Lauren, Annette and James Bullock and their daughters Valerie and Jessie, Renee Young and her companion James and her daughter Alyssa, Jody and Tony Galasso and their children Kristina, Susan, Oriana, Nicole, Theresa, and Anthony, Joseph Collins, and Mark Petersen's mother Florence Petersen, and her traveling companion Lillian Pohorilak. Unfortunately our brother John couldn't be with us, but he did send along his best wishes.

To see the formal night photo of the whole family click on the image below. (Warning: It's a big file and might take a minute or so to load (depending on your access speed). It will open in a pop-up window which you can resize in order to see the whole picture.)

The Collins Family and Friends Group Photo Onboard the Disney Magic.

We all flew in to the Orlando area beginning August 1. Some of us met up in Cocoa Beach, Florida the night before the cruise for dinner at Olive Garden and a pool party at an Econolodge in Cocoa Beach that was "formerly owned by 7 of the original astronauts."

Bright and early the next morning, we carpooled 25 of us over to the ship's terminal at Port Canaveral. The other 8 had stayed in Orlando and were transported to the ship by the Disney bus gnomes.

The following pages chronicle our wonderful trip. The pictures come from various members of the family! To view them, simply read the caption and then click on the picture. A new pop-up box containing a bigger version of the picture will open in the upper left corner of your screen. If the picture is bigger than the box, you'll have to resize the box. To do that, simply place your cursor over one corner of the box and use it drag on corner open wider until you can see the whole picture.

By the way, check back every once in a while -- we should be adding more pictures on as more family members send in their images!