Overall, this was a terrific cruise. We are empty nesters and have cruised about a dozen times. We used to cruise every year or two, now we are cruising about two times a year. This was our first NCL cruise, which we selected over all other Mex Riv cruises because the Star is a bit faster ship and so it travels further south, to Acapulco. Next year the Star is switching away from this 8-day itinerary, so we are pleased to have had the chance to do this one this year. We'd arranged our own air and flew into LAX the evening before, staying in the Best Western Worldport a short cab ride from the port. Embarkation day was sunny and in the 60s. We arrived around 11:30 a.m. for a 4 p.m. departure. Lots of people were in the cruise port ahead of us, and embarkation seemed a little unclear to us as first-time NCL cruisers and first-time out of Los Angeles. We had to ask a couple of NCL people how embarkation was organized, before getting our cabin cards and tickets for embarkation group 18. The cruise port area around Pier 92 had many fewer chairs than cruisers waiting to get on, so people perched on counters or milled around. We were allowed on board around 12:30 p.m. A few late departures were still exiting the ship. We found our cabin and dropped our hand luggage about 12:40 p.m., since we'd innocently taken a circuitous route through the ship and didn't see the signs that said rooms wouldn't be ready till 2 p.m. We headed off to lunch at Versailles, the "designated" (no jeans) dining room, then toured the ship before the lifeboat drill. This itinerary had two sea days down to Acapulco, then four port days in a row, then one sea day between Cabo and Los Angeles. The first two days were a great intro to Freestyle Cruising. The ship's dEcor is friendly and cheery rather than particularly stylish. One appreciated touch: the atrium was turned into a temporary multi-level sports bar for the NFL playoff games, which were projected onto a massive screen easily viewable from decks 7-8-9. Our standard oceanview cabin aft portside was comfortable for two. Plusses: an in-room coffee maker (Folgers); a magnifying mirror built into the bathroom mirror; plenty of storage, two chairs. Minuses: the old-style bedspread that hides dirt rather than the newer duvet-style top bedding we've enjoyed our past few cruises (We understand this is changing soon.) Also, an upper bunk unit sticks out a few inches in just the wrong spot, I hit my head on it getting up the first couple of days. Liquid soap is not our preference, so we brought a bar of soap from home, along with some Windex wipes for a clean ocean view. We brought a power strip to charge our electronic gadgets, this worked great. The desk was crowded with the power strip and our gadgets, the coffee maker and the hair dryer, which was more high powered than most of the ones we've used on other ships. The cabin walls were not very well insulated, we could hear our neighbors sometimes. Ship noise and movement were minimal, though, and overall it was very quiet. It was our smoothest sailing ever from Cabo to Los Angeles, don't know if it was the weather or this ship. The fitness center has a good range of equipment, and in addition to fee classes (yoga, Pilates, spinning) offered two classes morning and evening for free. Plus, it's open 24 hours a day. Vacation for me is a chance to break away from the desk. We like to be physically active on vacation and I signed up for Pilates ($30 for 3 classes) to try something new this year. The instructors, Sheri and Jeljko, made these sessions quite challenging. The free and fee classes were the best attended I've seen on any cruise, as many as about 20 passengers attended, though a couple of times there were just a handful working out. Overall, we found the fitness program to be the best of any cruise we have taken to date. Even the stretch classes were high quality, not the generic relaxation classes we've had on some ships. At end of the first exercise class, someone from the spa came in with an unannounced special - a full body massage for $89 ($40 off) that evening. This was the first of many spa specials offered all week. My cruise habit is a massage at the end of a week after all the exercise, and unfortunately specials on rare on final sea days. The "deep tissue sports massage" I did get was good, but nowhere near as fine as the same type of massage I had on the Golden Princess last summer in Alaska. The masseuse did not exhibit much knowledge of sports medicine and did not apply specific, standard therapeutic massage where appropriate. So in this case, I didn't get the benefit one might expect for the extra $10 or $15 for a sports massage. We'd also bought the spa pool pass ($85) that provided access to the lap pool, a hydro therapy pool, a hot tub, and a row of nice loungers with a great forward view. The lap pool was usually empty, and with the spa open from 8 a.m. till 10 p.m., it was easy to fit in a few laps every day; this rare and distinctive lap pool is a superb option for exercise. We really warmed up to Freestyle dining. We ate as early as 4:30 p.m. and as late as 7:30 p.m. We ate at Versailles, Aqua, La Trattoria, Blue Lagoon, the Grill and the buffet (Market Cafe). We appreciated the ease of checking with the very accommodating staffers who manned the reservation table on Deck 8 near Endless Summer most hours of the day. We didn't eat at any of the charge restaurants, not because we were avoiding the cost, but because we wanted to experiment with a completely open schedule and didn't want to make many reservations. Plus, after the first day or so, we felt the amount of food served at the restaurants was more than we wanted to eat in a meal. Finally, we didn't eat at the sushi restaurant (one of our favorite foods) because they didn't have any real crab dishes, one of our distinguishing factors for a good sushi joint. The service in the restaurants was friendly if spotty. The staff was cheerful and attentive. However, sometimes it seemed that a waiter would be unfamiliar how a dish was supposed to be served, or what we had requested. For instance, La Trattoria offers an Italian menu (first plate/second plate). We went there twice, each time asking for the dinner to be served italian style. In the first instance, it was like it would be in Rome, with a small portion of pasta, followed in a separate course by a small portion of meat. The second waiter understood it meant less pasta, separate dish, but he served it all at once. Similarly, at breakfast one morning, I asked for a latte. Perhaps the waiter didn't know what a latte was, though he was sure I hadn't asked for cappuccino; he returned eventually with a big cup of espresso. These are little things, not a big deal at all, but signs of inexperience, perhaps? One oddity about the ship layout is how they have located these various food venues, often in traffic corridors. For instance, the direct route from our cabin to the pool deck crossed through the buffet. But every time we did this, we had to use the antiseptic hand cleaning station or a staffer would step up and request to see our hands and spray them. (A good thing, agreed.) Plus, if we walked through the buffet to see what we wanted to eat then went out the far end to check the grill outside, then came back in, the spray bottle monitors would go after us again. I probably had my hands sanitized 40 times some days. You'd think people might remember what you look like for 15 seconds, but no. Same thing going from our cabin to the public areas on Deck 7, that route took us through either Endless Summer or Blue Lagoon, though the staff at the edges of these spaces were not so aggressive with their squirt bottles. Another odd thing at the buffet was how fast the staff would pick up dishes, asking for them while we were just finishing eating. By contrast, the service in Versailles could charitably be called glacial in pace. We had breakfast there on our last sea day and at least 20 minutes elapsed between the time we received the wheat toast we'd ordered and our eggs were served. Overall, we appreciated the consistently good food. We especially enjoyed the variety of curries offered in the buffet -- two for lunch and two others at dinner. These were vegetarian dishes, but it was easy enough to find grilled or roasted fish, chicken or beef to add in, if one didn't want to go veggie. Things we didn't like: an inability to get small portions or half orders of dishes in the full service restaurants; only being able to get cappuccino in the full service restaurants; only being able to get curries in the buffet. The buffet coffee was poor, I ended up drinking tea instead when we ate there. I also thought about transporting the British style fish and chips round the corner from the Blue Lagoon to the Red Lion Pub but there was no newspaper-wrapped takeaway version of the dish. The ice cream station shares food service space with the gym's juice bar, out of a window adjacent to the children's play area and near the buffet. There was a steady stream of happy customers from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Flavors varied, sometimes by the hour. It took us four days to figure out where and when to get a cookie, offered only during "tea" (though it isn't called that) between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. at the aft end of the buffet. Scones, whipped cream and jam are also available then. It's near a tea station so our last few days we enjoyed "low" tea in the buffet. In the early days while we were trying to find our preferred sweets, we discovered instead fresh crepes next to the curries in the buffet. These were very tasty and popular. Though we didn't travel with children, we knew others who did. There is a large play area not far from the buffet on the aft of the boat that was warm and sunny even on the coolest days. It was a popular area for kids and families alike, being close to the ice cream. The buffet area also had a miniature kids buffet near the pool, with lower tables and foam squares for chairs. Kids also were offered a kid's-eye-level sanitizing station at this entrance to the buffet. The kids program is upstairs from the gym, and we heard many happy squeals, songs, and yo-ho-hoing whenever we walked by. Another great feature of this ship is the wraparound promenade on Deck 7. It has fun murals all the way around that reflect whatever is on the inside: Blue Lagoon, Ginza, the Galleria, the Carousel Bar... So you can keep track of your location as well as your laps, three laps to a mile. The jogging track topside was 4 laps to a mile, if I remember correctly. Nice teak loungers attracted those with inside or outside cabins who wanted fresh air, sort of a common balcony. In general, whether topside or down on Deck 7, it was easy to locate an empty lounger to stretch out and relax. We visited four ports on this trip: Acapulco, Zijuatanejo/Ixtapa, Puerto Vallarta and Cabo San Lucas. We only docked in Acapulco, we had tenders in the other three ports. It was unfortunate the Star wasn't awarded one of the two docks in Puerto Vallarta, since it does take a considerable chunk of port time to wait one's turn for tenders. For instance, at Zijuatanejo, scheduled arrival and departure times were 7 a.m. and 2 p.m. But with tenders, and priority given to passengers with ship tours, the wait for the morning tenders was quite long and the last tender back was 1:30 p.m. We thoroughly enjoyed this little town and stayed till nearly the last tender. Overall, tender service was efficient and there were several boats in play. We didn't take any ship's excursions on this trip, even though we usually sign up for at least one, since we'd been to all these ports before. We did take a private tour with two other couples in Acapulco, something we arrange through our Cruise Critic Roll Call. This was fun since we'd only walked Acapulco before and this got us a bit further afield. The traffic was bad, though, and the air pollution was worse. I had a terrible headache by the time it was finished, so we skipped dinner out with your new friends and stayed on board in the evening. Luckily, NCL had invited Acapulco aboard. I enjoyed the mariachis on the pool deck and we had a folkloric ballet troupe in the main showroom that evening. For whatever reason, the ship's shore maps and "recommended shopping" are a very poor match to our personal tastes. The best shopping for us was Zihuatenejo, where we got some fabulous Oaxacan textiles at a fine price from the shop in the waterfront walk just off the dock to the right. There are several very cool, shady coffee shops here, too, along the beach. A block or two in from the ocean are plenty other shops and restaurants. A brand new shop, called something like Murano Glass, opened just the week before we arrived and has fantastic jewelry made from Murano (as in Italy) glass. Globalization in miniature: local gal, Italian artist of a husband, equals a mom-and-pop shop with truly unique items, not cheap but well priced. I felt bad spending so much in Zihuatenejo till we got to Puerto Vallarta the next morning. My favorite store there has shut, amidst what looks like a virtual gutting of the Zona Romantica in the name of progress and new condos for ex-pat retirees. Cabo along the marina seems to have more condos than San Diego, with shopping malls, restaurants, etc. to match. However, as usual, all one has to do is aim perpendicular to the waterfront and walk away to reach in just a few blocks the Cabo of the locals. Still, this town has exploded, with lots of cars and traffic as it turns into a regular city. If you find your way to the old(ish) plaza, not easy to do as the ship's map only goes about three blocks in, you will be rewarded by also finding a big blue restaurant called Mi Casa. We were looking for (and found) a political campaign office, and afterwards stopped at Mi Casa for refreshment. Even though we were at least an hour early for lunch, the cook whipped up a dynamite bowl of guacamole and homemade tortillas to sop up the tequila in the only margarita I had on this trip. The mister has been talking about these tortillas for three days I hope he doesn't expect me to learn how to make them. We did a bit of shopping around the old plaza before heading down to La Haciendas which is in the process of being torn down, in order to build... more condos. After a terrific day in Cabo, while walking back to the tender we checked in with a couple vendors along the sea walk. Since the other boats had already left, we found prices softer than when I set my eye on a few baubles in the morning. I was persuaded to leave some cash behind for a fine silver and turquoise bracelet. (Possibly needless to say, there is a mountain of bad jewelry and bad pricing; one should already be well acquainted with the good stuff before buying it from a vendor. Caveat emptor!) Back on the ship, the other singular entertainment for us on board was the Second City comedy troupe. I'd gone to Second City in Chicago last summer so was interested in seeing this group. They did three shows and an improv workshop. I enjoyed the two I attended thoroughly. At the last show, on the last evening and in the cozier Spinnaker Lounge, about a dozen kids who seemed part of the kids program slumber party sat along the front of the stage. Several had a chance to participate in the improv and it added fun and freshness to the show. Sadly, I had a bit of work to do on this trip. In three ports I dropped into an Internet cafe to handle a few things. Internet cafes are ubiquitous, and we found if we walked a few blocks away from port, the price dropped rapidly. For instance, in Acapulco prices ranged from $6 per hour in the pier building to $2 per hour in the next building to 80 cents an hour just off the plaza near the cathedral. Disembarkation was typical of most of our cruises. We'd arranged with two other Cruise Critic couples to share a ride back to LAX ($53 is the official cab fare for 4 persons.) This worked out, sort of. Our disembarkation was worse than it needed to be. We could have just hung around till there were no lines, in our room or in the atrium where they had CNN on the big screen. Because we were sharing an early ride, we opted for "express" exit. It seemed like about a thousand people also wanted to follow the "express" route, and all lined up simultaneously at 7:15 to go through customs on board in the Spinnaker Lounge. The line ran all the way past the pool deck, to the buffet, then down the stairs, and it took us till almost 8 to do this task. One of the couples had arranged a shuttle for a 9 a.m. pickup, so about 8:15 we went to the gangway, this time with only about 300 people like sardines in a can. We were off the ship about 8:35 a.m. and waited around till 9 a.m. for the couple who'd arranged the shuttle, but never did see them. We did find the third couple, so the four of us shared a very pleasant ride going over the high points of this cruise and our plans for our next one. Back home, it's taken a few weeks to get over our vacation and become motivated to work, work, work again. Every day, though, I remember our trip as I walk on the hall runner from Zihuatenejo and our dog rushes in and out her doggy door with its own magic Oaxacan carpet. I run my fingers over the turquoise links of my new favorite bracelet. I'm finally doing Pilates at the gym, having learned a few things from my "personal" trainers on board the Star. I bought a curry cookbook and so far it's going well, even if I don't know what a garam something is or where to buy it. On a scale of 1-10, we would rate this cruise a top 10 best ever. Thanks again to our friends at Cruise Critic.