CINCINNATI — This month marks five years since the start of the pandemic. One Ohio couple got national attention after COVID left their cruise ship stuck at sea. Now they're back at sea, this time taking a little more precaution.

What You Need To Know

  • Rob and Andrea Anderson were stuck in a cruise ship cabin for weeks after a deadly COVID outbreak on board back in 2020 

  • In the five years since the pandemic, they've been on 13 more cruises 

  • Still facing long-term effects from the illness, the couple is making sure they're up to date on vaccines so they can continue to cruise

Spectrum News caught up with Andrea and Rob Anderson who were on yet another cruise. It’s the same thing they were doing when their vacation turned into a nightmare back in 2020 at the start of COVID.

“At that point, we were trapped at the tip of South America,” said Rob Anderson. 

Their cruise ship could not dock because of a deadly COVID outbreak. It was one of the first major outbreaks during the pandemic. They’d been confined to their room for weeks before they got the notice they could leave. 

Five years later, they say they’re still living with the effects from that cruise.

“I picked up, courtesy of COVID, while we were on the Zaandam, I now have a pacemaker, I've had one ablation, I'm going in for a second ablation,” said Rob Anderson. 

But the suburban Cincinnati couple isn’t letting that stop them.

In the five years since COVID, they’ve been on 13 cruises and counting.

"I sit there and I say, it's not going to get any better, so do I decide that I'm going to sit there at home and just wither away?" said Rob Anderson. 

Talking to Spectrum News from an island on their latest Hawaiian cruise, they say they have no plans to stop. 

“We have done some fascinating things — we've zip lined in Fiji, we swam with sea lions off Peru, we've walked on Antarctica, we rode the bullet train in Japan," said Andrea Anderson. 

They’re just doing things a little differently now.

“Any vaccine recommended for people our age, we’re getting that," said Rob Anderson. 

“We've had the pneumonia shot, we've had the RSV shot, the COVID, our flu shots are up to date," said Andrea Anderson. 

It's all so they go on their next cruise

“If one of us dies on one of our trips, we went out doing something we love," said Andrea Anderson.