We booked our January 30 Wish cruise less than 30 days out. If there's lots of rooms available, it might be possible to get early dining. Our friends had requested early dining and suddenly about 2 weeks before the cruise, we got moved from late to early dining. We had booked VGT partly because it was so much less than booking a specific category plus we just didn't know where we'd like to be since it was our first time on her. That a VGT booking was available was an indication that the ship wasn't going to be full so I can't say how it might compare to the one you're looking at.
We ended up deck 7 aft and liked it. A little far to get to the elevators but not too bad. It was a cat 7A navigator's verandah which we've never sailed in and we liked it so much we booked a GTY 7A for our upcoming September Wish cruise. Our friends were deck 7 forward - I think it was a 5B (?) and it was a good location too. Both of our staterooms were really quiet.
We could have booked Palo dinner but I'm not thrilled with their new menu plus we wanted to experience all of the MDRs plus pirate night so I wasn't unhappy with missing it. No brunch availability but with early dining I don't think it would have worked. I didn't even get a chance to really try much food on the pool deck because I was never hungry (other than the ice cream - we did do that a lot).
No idea how crazy CC was as we didn't get off the ship. Given that the ship wasn't full it probably was fine. We spent the morning doing the Aqua Mouse multiple times (didn't even get off it when it came to the end, just kept on going since there was no one in line) and spent time in the adults-only pool which was deserted as was the Cove Cafe.
We didn't get to do everything we wanted on the ship but we did do trivia (won twice!), had a drink at Nightingale's and listened to the piano player, the Bayou (beignets!), the Rose (but at night so no views), all of the shows, played the adventure game, watched the baby races, both pirate shows and fireworks, the kiss goodnight on pirate night in the atrium, and just generally chilled. We're back for a three-day in September so that we can do some of the things we missed (the Rose during the day, Bayou beignets with chocolate sauce, Hyperspace Lounge, Incredi-course, finish up the adventure game, kiss goodnight on another night, more chillin').