isn't it funny how people see things differently.
i agree with barb that the 6am immigration thing is a major pain, but my family agreed we prefer the eastern itinerary. while we've only done each one only once (as opposed to barb and tony), we've concluded we prefer the more leisurely pace of the eastern and the extra day at sea. i wasn't very impressed with either grand cayman or cozumel as cities, but i'm sure that the weather (cloudy, gray and/or rainy) had a part in that. key west was nice, but we can do that more easily on our own at any time.
that said, i was disappointed with what i see as a significant cutback on activities on board. the personal navigator used to be a full two pages long with stuff to do...this time, some days, there was only a single page of activities. not that we weren't always busy, but it just didn't seem like there were as many options as in the past.