My cousin and I chose the Carnival Glory for our first cruise based on price, destination, and reviews we'd read here. Most of them are pretty accurate, we found!
Embarkation, 12/16: Easiest, most painless part of the whole trip. We were through and in the Red Sail in 15 minutes. We stayed the night before at the airport Crowne Plaza and it was the best night's sleep I've ever had; they have a shuttle through Mears (we did the Fly Aweigh program) that goes directly from the hotel to Port Canaveral, then they take care of getting the luggage onto the ship for you. We had everything by dinner time.
Food: I can understand how foodies might be pretty critical of the food, since a lot of it is standard large-crowd buffet-style fare. I would consider myself to be a food snob, but I usually found that if I didn't like something there was always somewhere else I could eat, so I wasn't too upset about it! I always got a soup and a salad appetizer at dinner (we ate every night in the sit-down seating, we had the late one in the Golden Dining Room and it was nice, no kids or Seniors though if you're looking for that crowd), and the entrEe's were about what you'd expect. You definitely want to do one night in the Emerald Room Supper Club, it's totally worth the extra $30, and this is where you can get your awesome filet and lobster tail. The deli was pretty good (I just remembered I left a roast beef sandwich in the room fridge, darn!), I never tried the Oriental or the Fish & Chips because the Red Sail buffets were usually ok. The breakfasts were pretty terrible, though. I was really disappointed that there weren't more fresh-fruit options, but then I realized we likely had all our food onboard when we left FL and it wasn't like we were stocking up on fresh Island produce (darn!). Also, keep in mind that the sit-down breakfast serves the exact same food as the Red Sail, only with slower service. If you don't mind powdered eggs, greasy undercooked bacon and blah pancakes you'll be fine, but I think they could have done better than what I would consider a standard cheap hotel breakfast.