Just a quick review. I'm 46 and my wife is 35. This is my 8th cruise and my wife's 4th. The bad reviews we read about did not happen on this cruise. No bad smells, great and even cold AC and the ship was definitely not taken over by Puerto Ricans or the entertainment geared towards them. Yes there were several hundred, but everyone was well behaved and had a fun time.
Embarkation: We arrived at 3pm and it took all of 20 minutes to get on. Got our sign and sail card, walk around the curve to the duty free and picked up a bottle, went through security and to our cabin. Cabin 6104 was right below the bridge. Our window looked directly out over the bow. The deck outside our cabin window is only accessed by walking all the way towards the bow on the inside corridor of deck 6 or 7. This was like having a semi-private deck with a 180 degree view. Very few people found out how to access this area. We booked all our shore excursions with independents and none with Carnival. All the tour info can be found on the forums for that particular island so I won't go into each of them
St Thomas: Been there many times so we visited friends.