We arrived a day early and stayed at a nearby hotel that offered shuttle service to/from port. We drove from Tucson, about a 9 hour trip. The embarkation process was lengthy. We arrived about 12:30 to a very long line. We waited patiently and found someone to take our bags directly onto the ship. However, we waited in the same line only to find out that we also could have gone directly into the building for the embarkation process. Picture for id card, credit card info, etc. Oh well. When we did figure that out we went in and had no wait at all. Then onto the ship we boarded and told that our rooms were not ready, but to go upstairs and have lunch. Around 3:00 we went to our suite with balcony and our luggage already arrived.
The first two days are sea days and then we arrived in Acapulco. However, the day before our arrival the Captain told us that we would be late getting into the port and that another ship was in our spot at the dock and we would have to be tendered in. So for anyone taking a tour in Acapulco it was not on time. We had signed up to play golf at the Princess Hotel and that was changed to the Mayan Palace due to a tournament at the Princess and because we didn't get off the ship in time we barely got our round in before sunset. The course was nothing special.
We loved the freestyle cruising concept and ate at Cagney's for our 25th anniversary and the food was outstanding, well worth the extra $20 cover. We also ate at the French restaurant but was not impressed with that. On the last day of our cruise if you booked a reservation between 5:30 and 6:00 the cover was 1/2 price. Cagneys was already booked so we went to the French restaurant.