We arrived in Miami on Thursday to stay a day at Miami beach, which we did not enjoy! We then took a taxi over to the port on Saturday morning. It was absolute chaos when we arrived with people departing and people boarding! I was terrified sending my luggage with the porter afraid it wouldn't make it to the ship! Found our way to check in, and of course get behind a large family who have no clue where their IDs were! After that mess we made our way up to security where both mine and my husband's bags had to be searched, still not sure why! Then made our way to the next check in, where there were 2 lines, and they were alternating which line went to check in. Once we got to the head of our line, the other line let 5 groups of people go before we were allowed to! something about breaks or something! Irritating! We were checked in and given zone 11. We were on the ship by about 12:30, which is late for us. On past cruises we are usually on by 11:30 or 12, but it was OK, not too much waiting.
Once on board we had the buffet on the lido, went to our room, which was nice, and then went to explore the ship. A lot of people complained about the layout of the ship or the decor. I didn't have a problem with either. The ship was just like ones in the past, where if you want to get to the back of deck 3, you have to go deck 5, and walk to the back, and then go down 2 flights. So no big deal. I didn't see any issue with the decor, i thought it was nice.
Once at sea you can really get a feel for the ship and atmosphere. I was recovering from a root canal, and thought it was me, but other people said it seemed a little more laid back then usual. The crew and cruise directors just didn't seem as enthusiastic as usual! They didn't have the fun personalities of cruises in the past. The same with the cruise director, Goose, we hardly ever saw or heard from him. On our past cruise we always saw our cruise director and actually got to know him throughout the cruise.