One of our unpleasant surprises in an E/B Atlantic crossing was the almost daily change of hours. I think we changed 5 hours in 7 days, so when I was waking up and looking for breakfast, the ship was on its lunch schedule.
We had done a southern Atlantic crossing from Florida to Barcelona in the spring time, so we were able to use our comfortably warm balcony for most of the sea days. There was indeed a full schedule of activities up on deck and about the ship if one was interested. However, we relaxed, read, snoozed, etc. and were quite happy doing that the entire crossing. We saved our energy for when we began stopping in ports.
Enjoy your journey, do what you feel is most comfortable for yourself !!