We understand that we were guinea pigs, this being the first sailing of this ship from the port of Valencia, but we were really treated very poorly at the start of our cruise.We were a group of 12 friends and we arrived by coach to the port. It was impossible to miss the ship itself, because of its size, but there were absolutely NO signposts as to where to go for embarkation.Our driver asked several port policemen and after driving round for about 15 minutes we were offloaded at the ferry terminal "Acciona".Our suitcases were spirited away onto the ship, but we were herded into an airless cramped building for about 2 1/2 hours wait. After about 1 1/2 hours we made a fuss about 2 members of our party, one who uses a stick and could stand no longer, and the other who has a heart complaint. With difficulty these people were eventually given priority boarding, and finally we all arrived onboard.There appeared to be no Royal Caribbean staff supervising the local Spanish staff, who were simply overwhelmed and not able to cope. RC cannot just blame the port, they need to teach them and liaise to improve things.Because we were not boarding the ship at the first port of call, Malaga, we were not able to book shore excursions or any other package before boarding which made us all uneasy before we went about being able to get the trips of our choice. As it happens that was not a problem, but again RC could have had our money 8 weeks in advance of the cruise - bad planning again! On board 2 of our group were charged 16000 and 22000 dollars for wine in the dining room! Make sure you check every entry on your seapass account - poor admin again.Despite these big negatives we had a great holiday and we all enjoyed the service, the food and the entertainment on board.The days in Rome and Florence were really tiring because of the early start and the long walks from the coach parks at Pisa and Florence.One other negative to mention is the timing of the closures of the "Windjammer" self-service. It seemed that whenever we had got back from an exhausting day otu and just wanted a cup of tea/coffee and a small snack the "Windjammer" would be closed and we only had the very limited space of the promenade cafe to use, with perhaps 100 other people.