Here is a review with what will hopefully be useful information and tips. The cruise was a part of a very large group of nearly 500 Wisconsin EMTs, Paramedics and Firefighters along with their family and friends. It was their 3rd group cruise.
Embarkation was for the most part pretty easy and straight forward. The lines were pretty long, however. They allowed everyone to board the ship early (about 12:15) but asked that passengers not go to their cabins until after 1:30. We had skippers club privileges due to the cabin we were provided. Unfortunately this only applied to the inside line to get your sail and sign card, etc. - not to the outside line to get through security and into the other line. We did bypass this second line and were among the very first people to board the ship.
Having read many of the other reviews here, we had a pretty good idea what to expect. What we didn't expect with such a new ship was all of the things that were not working. The slide was closed for the week due to problems, all sorts of light bulbs or lights in our cabin were either burned out or missing. Card readers and other items in the Internet Cafe were not working; even the 10 piece band in the show lounge was missing their tenor sax player making them a 9 piece band with some pretty strange sounds at times when only the sax section had the melody. Perhaps these things are nit picky from someone who has cruised many times before, but I hope it is not a sign of things to come from Carnival.