I like reading the long reviews so that is what I wrote. Let me preface this review with we had a Great time!
Quick background: We are late 40's, 2nd cruise with Princess (last one 5 years ago on the Golden Southern Route). We don't do a lot of the on board activities (trivia, bridge, photos, etc.). We travel to see the new sites and are just more comfortable booking through Princess for activities so we don't have to worry. And we are not shoppers.
Embarkation: they were telling us to not show until 3 pm because of how busy it would be (got a specific email from travel agent and from Princess). We decided to just go over when we checked out of our hotel at noon. We were on board by 12:45 pm (includes getting the taxi, the ride there, luggage drop off, check in, getting on board and finding our room). We brought in our packed luggage some gin and wine, in carry on we brought some soda and tonic water. We bought more gin in one of the ports and carried it on the ship in our backpack.