Since I come from NY we arrived 2 days early and stayed in Miami with friends. The ship boarded at 1pm but I had been told you can arrive real early so we arrived at 11:00am and got right on the ship. We weren't allowed in our room yet but we could enjoy the "public areas". We beat the crowds and it was great and we were in our rooms by 12:00 an hour before the crowds.
This cruise was during school break in a lot of areas so there were a lot of kids on board. I was disappointed that the "over 18" hot tubes were not monitored by the cruise staff so there were a ton of kids in all the hot tubs making it difficult to be enjoyed by adults. The ice cream machines were constantly empty or closed so there was little available in the ice cream/frozen yogurt category.
We had an inside stateroom that was very comfortable. The 10th deck made it close to the pool but far from everything else. The elevators were constantly jammed with people from the lower floors so the stairs were our mode of travel. In the future I would stay on the 5-7th deck where you are equal distance to everything.