BACKGROUNDWe traveled with a family of 10, myself, DH and our 3 girls (9, 8 and 4), my sister and her 2 boys (7 and 4) and my parents. We are diamond members and have cruised with RCI many times. We are huge RCI fans, so I hope this review doesn't seem too negative. We stayed in cabins 9520, 9522 and 9524.PRE-CRUISE HOTELStayed at the Westin Beach Resort for two nights pre-cruise. Hotel is very nice. Pool felt like bath water, and there is a skywalk to the beach. Hotel has a Shulas, a poolside cafe and a Starbucks. We ate breakfast each morning at Starbucks. The poolside cafe had horrible service, took us nearly 45 minutes to get our lunch. We ate dinner both nights at Shula's. Great food and service at high prices. If you have more than an overnight, this hotel would be a good choice. Otherwise, save your money and stay someplace less expensive. EMBARKATIONWe arrived at the port around 11, and were on the ship in the Windjammer at 11:45. Embarkation was a breeze.STATEROOMSStateroom attendant was Leevaw. Cabin was fine, but we had to request robes and diamond invites, all the while he seemed rather annoyed. 9520 has a great view (is the first balcony cabin facing the front). The welcome aboard package for diamond members is lame. They left us 3 waters, 1 coke and some trail mix. Then we had mini bar charges on our account when we drank the waters! I had to stand in the line at guest relations to get the charges removed. Also, we requested that the mini bar items be removed. The mini bar attendant told us that she would stack the stuff on the TV?!. I explained to her that we had small children and did not want the mini bar items stacked on the TV, so she packed the items in our upper cabinets instead of taking them away. Then she turned our refrigerator off! We missed the old amenity. Kids still got crayons and my oldest got an RCI bag, but nothing for adults. We would have rather had a hat than trail mix that we did not eat and bottled water that RCI tried to charge us for. Just one more obvious cut-back.FOODThe food in both the Windjammer and the main dining room was very good. There were many options in the Windjammer and the menu in the main dining room included a great variety of foods including lobster (which I had read was not available in previous reviews). We did not eat at the specialty restaurants because we enjoy family meal time and the dining room experience. We did eat at Johnny Rockets and it was okay at best. The onion rings were delicious. We aren't fast food people, so my kids were very disappointed with the burgers and the club sandwich (probably has more to do with our personal eating habits than a true reflection of the food).SERVICEThe service on NOS was not on par with other RCI ships. For example, in the Windjammer I was refused iced tea for breakfast. I know it isn't a big deal, but on other ships the staff did not tell us "no" for simple requests. The tea is made from concentrate. They pour it over water. Also, in the Windjammer there was a guy walking around soliciting sales of orange juice, Perrier, and wine decanters. He frequently interrupted us while trying to enjoy our breakfast or lunch to sell us stuff. This was extremely irritating. Have they resorted to trying to nickel and dime us during meals? For the first time, we felt like a number instead of a valued customer. All the while, tables were not bused, nobody walked around with coffee or water. This is bad policy and should be stopped immediately. Service in the MDR was good. We had the dynamic duo of Carlos (waiter) and Carlos (assistant waiter). Leslie was our head waiter. Dinner took at least 2 full hours every night. Granted, we had a table of 10, but it made it difficult for the children to sit for so long. Not sure who to blame for the length of the meal, we did feel that Carlos was working extremely hard the entire time, and it could have been the kitchen (I guess). Regardless families, don't let this dissuade you from enjoying the MDR together. It truly is one of the highlights of the cruising experience. And on previous cruises, dinner never took so long.DRESS CODEThe relaxed nature of the attire worn in the MDR was unbelievable to me. I am not sure if this is industry wide, or just because NOS has a shorter itinerary, but people were so underdressed. RCI - please enforce the dress code. If someone choses to wear shorts to dinner, let them eat at the Windjammer. I am trying to enforce etiquette and good manners with my children, and want them to enjoy a formal dining experience. It is difficult when they are surrounded by shorts, flip-flops and wife-beater tank tops. I am not asking for people to be decked to the nines, but I do expect some effort to be made.And if you chose not to dress for dinner, then chose to eat elsewhere.SPORTS DECKThe sport deck (like the rest of NOS) seemed understaffed. We were 2nd in line at the rock wall one morning when it opened. We waited 45 minutes before we began climbing. At 9:40 when finally opened the wall, there was only one attendant working the ropes, and it appeared that he was also working the inline skating desk, because he kept running back and forth between the two! Mini golf and ping pong were fun. We did not play on the sports court.ENTERTAINMENTThe ice dancing show and Paul Boland (comedian impressionist) are MUST SEES. Paul Boland had me belly laughing. Make sure to bring your kids to both. Paul Boland called all the kids onto the stage. If you have a budding superstar like I do, this will be a huge hit. The other shows were good, but these two stood out.TIME CHANGENOS has you turn your clocks back the first night and forward the last sea day. I have never been on a ship that changed ship time. Normally, we are just told when going ashore to stay on ship time. That proved problematic for us in Grand Cayman, since it didn't occur to me that I had turned my clock back 1 hour, and I ended up 1 hour late for our excursion. Fortunately we had booked privately with Native Way watersports online, and they couldn't have been nicer about the mix up. Please heed my warning - make sure you are clear on time AND time zone when booking a private excursion. Read more about our fabulous Native Way adventure below! OVERALL EXPERIENCEPlease take my complaining with a grain of salt, we really did have a great vacation. Cruising is such a wonderful way to please everyone. But for the first time on NOS, I felt like RCI has some real improvements to make with regards to service, particularly if they want to make first time cruisers want to return to RCI. DEBARKATIONWas a nightmare! Spoke to a woman who works in the terminal. She claims that the terminal used for NOS is too small to handle the size of the ship. She said that they are going to reconfigure the terminal when NOS leaves for Europe. Be prepared for long lines outside in the FL heat. We have never taken advantage of priority departure before, because we are never in a hurry to get off of the ship, but this time we wished that we had. If you have the status to be able to take advantage of priority departure, you should consider it on NOS.