I read so much negative comment about this ship to the point I started to worry about the trip (my 18th cruise, 6th on RCCL). We got to the terminal about 10:30 am but there were already several hundred people checked in inside the building. The check in was kind of ok, with one young staff member giving us wrong info inside the terminal, luckily another lady clerk stepped in & got it all taken care of for the six of us. I don't mind the mobile check in clerk system, but can they not provide them with a small light weight hanging tray say about 10" x 14" on their neck, so we don't have to fumble with a bunch of setsail passes, passports, ink stamp, etc. Another huge complaint is with the boarding process for the 4800 guests. The soft spoken person responsible lacks the capability of controlling a large crowd. I sailed on their Oasis & Allure & was quite impressed with their boarding process both times. I am not sure what happened here.
Once on board the ship, just about everything went well for us. The ship simply looks beautiful to me. I tried the ifly, north star & bumper cars, everything works, as long as you don''t mind the long lineup. Expect to have to wait 5 minutes for your elevators at times. One thing though, this ship doesn't seem to be nearly as stable as the Oasis class.
Dinner at Silk the first night was at 5:45pm, & yes, that was the only time I could secure before sailing. When we showed up at the door, they COULDN'T find our booking, but we were seated in no time anyway. Other dinner bookings were ok for the rest of the cruise, aside from the odd hours here & there. Oh well, we were on vacation, or I often jokingly called it work vacation (for me anyway, as I was the one who had to spent hours dealing with all the presail bs online), so we put up with it in the end. All meals in the main restaurants were completed under 2 hours & quality of service was quite good actually. I noticed a long line up for a fairly long time at dinner time at the Chic on day 4 & 7 for guests with reservation, not sure what happened there.