My husband and I are in our early thirties and neither of us had ever been a cruise before. We decided to go with the Caribbean Princess. Here are my thoughts:
Embarkation: It was tedious and stuffy in the terminal, but all things considered it was smooth. Security was fast and the actual process of getting on the ship was quick.
Dining: We did Anytime Dining. The food in the main dining room was, on the whole, very good. We only ate three meals there though, as it happened. The first night the food was great but we ended up having to share a table and the people we were seated with were kind of a snooze. The next time we ate at the dining room we decided to wait for a table for two.
Due to our location so near the pool/bar/grill, we were worried about noise but we were never really bothered by it. We could never hear anything from our neighboring cabins, and even the noise from the pool was not very noticeable. The sail away party was loud and we could hear that but it was over soon. I thought this was a great room! It was convenient to the buffet, the elevator, the grill and a pool. We'll try for this area again on our next cruise.