To start I would like to thank everyone for all the info I got on this site.
Overall: I am 42 my wife 38 and my son 6. After reading some bad reviews I was surprised that we enjoyed our cruise so much. We actually wanted to go on the Carnival Spirit as we did last year but my son would only miss 1 day of school if we went on the NCL Star. I do not think that we would have enjoyed ourselves as much if we had the attitude that we already paid a lot of money, we're not paying anymore for food. This was our 7th cruise but our first with freestyle dining.
Embarkation: We got to Los Angeles 1 hour early at 12 noon and were on board by 12:30. I dropped my wife, son and luggage off in front of the ship. While I parked my wife found a porter and tipped him $10, all I had left was a backpack. Once aboard we were taken to our room and our luggage arrived within 2 hours.