We embarked on our cruise Christmas week, December 21, 2003. We travelled with two boys, 15 and 11 as well as parents who are 75 and 80. The ship was filled to capacity. No upgrades were available.
This is our second cruise, the first having been on the Celebrity Century in 2000.
Embarkation was not as bad as many of the reviews I read. While it was not particularly well organized I attribute any chaos to the ancient mindset of the cruise industry as a whole rather to any specific cruise line. Certainly the cruise industry has a few lessons to learn from the hotel and airline industries. If checking in and checking out of a Holiday Inn was as chaotic as it is with a cruise they would have been out of business decades ago.