Pros: Leaving the ship in port

Cons: Norwalk Virus - poor quality food - not enough staff

We boarded ship for an 8-day Mexican Riviera Cruise departing L.A. on 1/18/08. We were unaware that the ship had already been "infected" with the Norwalk Virus. On day 3 (Monday, 1/20/08) we were first informed over the intercom by the Captain that there were passengers with the Norwalk Virus on board and that we should take extra care in washing our hands, etc. On Tuesday, 1/21 the buffet lines were staffed with NCL employees to keep passengers from handling food, spoons and serving plates (this was mostly enforced, but I watched passengers "break the rules" daily with no intervention by crew. Each day more and more people were sick (we heard from other guests about someone in their group being sick, etc.) We stayed in our cabin the majority of the cruise and rarely ventured out of cabin unless we were in port. Also, we did not allow any crew members in our cabin and we retrieved clean linens for our own cabin, not wanting to allow the staff access so that they could cross-contaminate our cabin (this was no fun for us on vacation, but necessary.) There were a few occasions (we saw one and heard about others) where passengers were so violently ill that they vomited in public without warning. Also, the captain warned over the intercom 3-4 days at the end of cruise that "infected people had been seen around the ship after they were on quarantine." We spent one day in port purchasing Lysol, hand sanitizers and cleaners as we wanted to make sure we did not get ill.