Just a quick personal anecdote that I think some will appreciate. I am a diamond member, so I frequently will try to get to the cruise port as soon as possible to be on the ship as early as possible with my family. I used to value this because I wanted to savor every minute I could on day one, and to do things like flowrider when the lines were really low.
Today, my family arrived for our odyssey cruise at 12:30, we checked in and walked right on. It was such a nicer experience. Honestly, getting those additional one or two hours really didn’t matter. And it was so great to not have to sit in the terminal waiting. And to stand in line, waiting outside for the terminal port open.
Now that thing said, we did not have to worry about making unlimited dining reservations, there was nothing specifically we had to make reservations for as soon as we got on,etc. So not boarding right away didn’t really matter. The only issue we ran into today was that the complementary Ifly spots were taken. But my son has done a couple times so not a big deal.
Anyway, I’m done trying to be “first”.