What Travel Did Bill and Mary Do After Returning to San Francisco Bay?

Updated

After sailing back into San Francisco Bay in late 2010, Bill Finkelstein and Mary Mack switched from life on the water to travel on land and by cruise ship. According to their website, they traveled primarily on Celebrity and Oceania cruises and were away up to 7 months out of the year, covering "pretty much" everywhere they wanted to go. They now describe themselves as enjoying being home, with only occasional trips.

The shift from sailing to land and cruise travel

The couple's sailing years ended when they returned to the Bay Area after roughly seven years and more than 25,000 miles aboard their Valiant 50, Raptor Dance. Their site frames the next phase as a deliberate change of mode rather than a slowdown at first: they started traveling on land and on cruise ships, and the volume of travel was substantial — up to seven months annually.

What the site says specifically

  • Mode of travel: land trips plus cruise ships.
  • Cruise lines named: Celebrity and Oceania, described as their primary choices.
  • Scale: away up to 7 months per year.
  • Scope: they "pretty much went everywhere we wanted to go."
  • Current pattern: mostly home now, with occasional trips.

How to read this if you're planning similar travel

The site is a personal travel record, not a booking resource, so it doesn't list itineraries, dates, or prices for the cruises. What it does show is a workable model for long-haul retirement travel: choosing a small number of preferred cruise lines and building extended trips around them.

If you want to follow a similar pattern, the practical questions are:

  1. Which lines match your route interests? Bill and Mary concentrated on Celebrity and Oceania; checking those lines' current itineraries is the place to start, since schedules change year to year.
  2. How long can you realistically be away? Their upper bound was about seven months a year, which implies arrangements for home, mail, and health coverage while gone.
  3. What does the trip cost? The site gives no pricing, so budget from current cruise line fares and your own land-travel estimates.

Where to see more of their travels

  • Photos: curated images are on Flickr at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mack-finkelstein/.
  • Legacy site: pre-2009 material, including early digital photos and videos, is at http://pre-2009.williamfinkelstein.com. The site itself warns that links may be broken, photos are low resolution, and the page is not SSL protected — so avoid entering any personal information there.
  • Recognition: the site also links Bill's presentation from the Chaffey High School Alumni Association's 2024 Alumni of the Year ceremony, where he was named "2024 Tiger of the Year."

For anyone researching the couple, the main page is the summary; the Flickr account and legacy site hold the visual record of both the sailing years and the later land and cruise travel.