We took a glass-bottomed boat to Isla de Roqueta in Acapulco Bay. The trip out included a stop at an underwater statue of a Saint where one of the boat proprietors dived down and did a few somersaults and then asked for tips! The island itself was great. You rent a table for $3 for the day and the restaurant serves you as you desire at reasonable prices. The garlic baked red snapper was wonderful. The snorkeling off the shore was lots of fun and there was coral and a variety of colorful fish. The shoreline itself was very active with many luxury yaughts and tourist boats coming in and out all day.

This is a very famous island of Acapulco. They say that if you go to Acapulco and you don't go to Isla la Roqueta it's like you never went to Acapulco. The island itself is very beautiful, especially in the summer when you can see the different colors of green the the island has to offer and lay out on the beach off the island or take a jungle tour around. If you have the chance in your hotel they can offer you a trip to El Palao Island Club. I would recommend you to take that tour because it's very nice and that club has a private beach in the island and a wonderfull view of all Acapulco Bay.

In all honesty, I don't think the beaches at Acapulco are as good as those in Cancun or Ixtapa, but let's face it, a bad day at a mediocre beach STILL beats a great day at work!

My family took one of the boats over to Playa la Roqueta for the day. We'd heard the beach was good, and it is--not great, but good. It's fairly large and a very short boat trip from downtown.

There were several restaurants on the island and, like many Mexican beach areas, if you hang out at the restaurant and drink their beer, you can use their tables, umbrellas, and rest rooms for free. We picked one of the cleaner looking restaurants and set up camp for the day, ordering a few shrimp cocktails and a round of chilly brewskis while the kids dashed off to play in the water and commence sandcastle construction projects.

The weirdest thing about this beach is that a herd of burros that lives on the island has developed a taste for cold beer (can't say that I blame them). They come around to the tables and try to bum brewskis off you. I thought the burros were just local color, sort of like the ponies on Assateague Island, but no, a guy at the next table went up to one of the burros, held up a bottle of Corona, and the burro proceeded to chug-a-lug the bottle out of the guy's hand! It looked like so much fun that I had to try it too (but with an Indio--I have much better taste in beers than some folks).

We walked up to the lighthouse, which was just a short walk away, and sat on the rocks for a while, just loving the sunshine and the light sea breeze, then we wandered over to the small "zoo." Small is the operative word here. There couldn't be more than a dozen or so animals in rickety cages. PETA members would be aghast at this island, no doubt . . .

Getting to the island is easy--there are boats going over every few minutes. I've heard that some leave from Playa Caleta, but we caught a ferry at Playa Larga. Some of the ferries have glass bottoms so you can see the fish, or the local curiosity (more like a hokey gimmick): a submerged statue of the Virgin Mary.

Overall, a pretty nice day, and inexpensive to boot.

The visability was about 10-20ft. The fish were very varied. Our first dive was to 45 ft, and we saw sea snakes, octopus, and other fish. The second dive was at the under water statue of the virgin of Guadalupe. We picked up some neet shells on the second dive.

The boat was small and serviceable; the crew was very helpful. We were beginners, and they didn't make us feel bad. You could have pictures taken of your dive, but before we went out, they showed us some samples and we decided not to go for the extra expense. The pictures we saw hardly showed anything.