Always a bit nervous to do DCL, as we love going to WDW and were afraid of Disney overload on their ships. Found the ship a good size with a load of 2,600 passengers. With two teenage children, we avoided most of the long lines associated with character greetings, but still got to see them out and about and in shows, which was fine. We actually noticed on our port day to WDW that the lines to meet characters in the parks were shorter than on ship.
We found food to be quite good, as to quality, variety, portions, etc. We loved the rotational dining! As each dining room was smaller, more intimate and less noisy than on say Carnival. We did early dining for first time, and actually liked it. With 5:45 seating and 8:30 show times, we had time for other activities and didn't go to bed overly full! We had been afraid of too many kids at early seating, but with a table for 4 we had no issues.
We had been a bit nervous not having a casino, but actually never missed it once. Realize Disney charges premium to make up for lack of revenues from gambling and less drinking, so we felt we got what we expected.