Let me first start out by saying that if this is your first cruise, please do not listen to the bad publicity on this ship. First of all, a person might not be having a good day when they had their experiences. I read a bunch about this ship good and bad and I have several comments on both.
Getting on the ship was so easy, I don't know where some of the bad comments came from. I was in and out of registration within 30 minutes. And only because I had to wait on my husband to get back from parking the truck. If he had of been there, it would of taken us only 15 minutes to register. We also showed up early, reading from other reviews that they sometimes start boarding early. So I can only think of one reason why people would wright badly about boarding, and that is because they were late arriving. Getting off the ship was also a very good experience.
Next, I would like to comment on the food, if anyone has said something bad about the food being cold, I could only imagine that it was because they showed up late for breakfast or other dining options. We ate most of the time at the buffet and it was very good (and let me tell you, I am a very picky eater, and I never had a bad thing to say about the food I tried) it was wonderful. There were times that I didn't like some of the food that was being served but there was plenty to choose from. Breakfast like I said could be cold at times, but that was because we slept late and it was luke warm when we got there. I could say that they could have different options daily, but what do you expect, they are serving 2000 daily. As for the formal dining option, we ate there 3 times within the cruise and the food was ok. We like spicy food, but for the food not being the way we enjoy it, it was very good. We are use to a lot of spices, because I am Mexican, so I couldn't complain. Not everything is cooked the way you cook it. I did not have any problems with the bland food, I just used more salt and pepper.