DunwoodyDad

The caribbean chicken is excellent, a full plate of food. However, I strip the skin to eat it   Most of the spice is on the skin-I strip it due to a dietary restrictions I have.
the pork enchilada is a lot of food, very tasty.
they ruined the Turkey dinner by putting peppers in the corn.  My recent sailing on Oasis they had watery cranberry “sauce”, you would need a spoon -like a soup-to eat it.  
 
 

 
 

Please reply with your favorites and things that are just a no-go (such as Matt mentioned something about a horrible cauliflower dish on his Monday YouTube video). 

Leave the hotel (or wherever) and arrive at the Canaveral parking garage at 9:45-10:00am. If you are able body, park the car in the garage and wheel the bags downstairs to where the porter is instead of wasting time circling around to drop the bags off. This is going to generate some noise from this crowd but ignore the boarding times listed on the the small signs and just walk down the earliest time entry point like you own the place. You should be on the ship with a cocktail in hand by 10:30 with plenty of time to figure out where you want to eat lunch!

Thanks all!  I’m going for it!

This is the only hot sun you will be waiting in for hours and it’s much better with a Kraken Pina Colada:

Yep, roll the dice on this one. I personally think the entire enforcement process is bogus and a mirage for the sake of crowd control at the terminal. I cannot imagine these terminal workers holding anyone back, in fact the entire act of holding people back and scrutinizing a boarding pass entry time goes against the line flow and stops forward progress. 

I would risk it.....worst case scenario, they make you wait...

I think it would be fine. I’ve never had anyone look at my boarding time. Last cruise we actually got a notification to wait an additional hour, but I was five minutes from the port and just went ahead and boarded, no problem.

Remembered this and wanted to share something. Today our checkin on WOS was 11:30am...our Uber driver arrived early and we made great time so arrived at the port around 10:15. We told them we were early but they sent us in anyway. In fact, we were aboard in less than 15 minutes. Because of the size of this terminal it probably skews the approach, Also, this is the first time we have arrived over an hour early but then again we haven't had to shuttle so far to the port.

I have two (hopefully helpful) comments.
1. If you want to arrive early and don't mind standing in line in case they enforce check in time, go for it! Yes, it is annoying to deal with a crowded terminal, but I won't judge you!
2. Even though you missed the 45 day check in, additional check in spots DO open up. I have had luck with this multiple times. I have seen earlier times appear 1 week before departure. Just keep checking the app and you might get lucky. 🙂

Reality = 99.99999% chance you can board early.
What RC/ Others will tell you = “you might get turned away” or “you should have picked your boarding time as soon as it was available”. You might even get the email from RC the night before with the same message “don’t come early”! The email in my experience is bogus and the gate agents are either clueless, confused by the chaos or don’t care. 
 
“you lose 100% of the chances you don’t take”
- Unknown 
 
 
 

Yup, that’s why you don’t miss the 45 day check in.  I get it, life happens.  I’m sure you’ll be fine whatever time you get on.

I don't think anyone was questioning that. There's a reason the earliest check-in times fill up first.
One of my goals on nearly every cruise is to take a scoop of untouched paella from embarkation day WJ lunch. 🤣

Thanks for the input to all. 
Everyone prioritizes different things but to be clear, I’m not the only one looking to get onboard as soon as possible (and yes, I’m a rope dropper at WDW too 😀)….

 

We deliberately chose 12:30, to give us time to drive there, but also to get to our room ASAP. (which, hopefully, will be open by 1:00)
The fun starts when you get on board, and at least it's not 2:30.  Don't stress trying to Rope Drop the ship. 

Just an FYI last week at the new Galveston terminal for the first time I remember this year they were not laying anyone that did not have first boarding time of 11 to even enter the serpentine line outside before opening.
I belive that after boarding started a little after 11, once the terminal waiting area cleared and people were walking directly on board the were not as strict.
So seems you're better off arriving close to your checkin time

They'll still be serving lunch if you board at 12:30.
I know you prefer something earlier, but please keep to your time and don't make it more crowded for the folks that did not miss the 45 day point.  It's not the end of the world if you do, but it's also not the end of the world to observe your 12:30 slot.

It varies by port. We found status considered before time, e.g. suite or Diamond status had priority.

I had no problem boarding before my assigned time last month at PC. I think, however, that they can enforce if things get too backed up.

In my experience your luck will depend on the ship and port.
If you arrive early and there are a lot of people waiting to board, then they'll probably make you wait. If you arrive and there's nobody around, they'll probably be happy to have you board early.  Smaller ships are more likely to have this happy situation.
For example, I've boarded Allure out of Galveston twice.  Each time it was a total zoo and they did everything they could to enforce boarding times.
I've also sailed out of the same terminal at Galveston on Adventure twice and Radiance once.  In all cases there were no lines and the port staff didn't even ask about boarding times.  

Personally, I would see about cancelling the ship insurance and only go the 3rd party route (I use Allianz). 3rd party policies usually have more/better coverage than those promoted by the cruise lines, particularly for medical and emergency transport. They'll also cover flights, which I don't think RC's policy does.

I fail to see where any of this is the fault of Royal Caribbean. 

OP said Adventure which looks to be sailing 4/5 night cruises, which I don’t think has had lobster nights for a while (old or new menus). I believe they are only on 7 night or more cruises. 

Agree that the ideal approach here is a button in the app that launches the pdf so you can easily access it.  Also needs to be available at least early evening the night before for those of us (certainly me) that like to read through the CC as a wind-down activity each night to plan the next day. It seems like this is where they are headed but need to tweak the process of each ship uploading the pdf and making it available in the app (which is honestly the easy part).

OP said Adventure which looks to be sailing 4/5 night cruises, which I don’t think has had lobster nights for a while (old or new menus). I believe they are only on 7 night or more cruises.