Norovirus outbreak 1: Me 0

I read the reviews on the Veendam but honestly thought some of them were written by people with much pickier tastes than I.  However, I agree, this ship is very dated.  Our hallway had patches of carpet that didn't match the rest and there were gouges in our cabin walls.  There is brass everywhere you look and decorations that should have been retired 20 years ago.  This ship is showing it's wear in the bars and common areas where there were many lights out and ceiling panels out of place.  The entertainment was definitely geared toward the older crowd, which we expected an older crowd but thought there would be something for everyone.  The shows we saw were not good quality, I felt like I could get hired as a dancer for one of these ships (could be fun I guess).  I felt bad for a couple of the guests who ended up in the dancing with the star finale as they got paired up with the opera singing couple who could not dance and there were bound to lose.  Not much to do on the Veendam but gamble, none of the classes sounded interesting.  There were good movies on board so we watched several and checked out some DVDs.  The modern music didn't start until 11 pm or later and honestly, even in our early 30s we just weren't up to staying up that late.  The service and food were great! We eat in the main dining room as often as possible as we just like the service and food better and they did not disappoint.  The couple meals we had in the Lido buffet were actually better than expected.

Unfortunately there was a Norovirus outbreak on our ship which was announced the night before we got back to San Diego.  My husband and I laughed about it and went about our evening.  Joke was on me, at 2:00 am I awoke and started vomiting more than I ever had in my adult life.  I couldn't even keep water down the rest of the day and we had to sit in the San Diego airport for 9 hours waiting for our delayed flight while I continuously shuffled to the closest bathroom to continue puking. It was enough to make me swear off cruising for a bit.