Welcome, Time4Disney! Glad to hear you had a great double-dip!
Ok, I have questions for you!
Were the lines a little more manageable/more relaxed since people had 5 days on board to get things done? (like boarding, Aqua Duck, etc.)?
Did you participate in the FE? How many cabins?
Did you dine at Palo? Was it easier to get a reservation online before the cruise since there are more nights to eat there?
Boarding: We sat in an area close to the entrance to get onto the ship. (When looking at the Mickey ears entrance, the seating area was to the left). This was a small sitting area. Personally, I found that getting through the mass of people was not that bad from this spot. (We were only a few steps away) I've read some reports that some people thought it was crazy in the terminal but from where I was it wasn't too bad. Just my opinion..........
Aquaduck: I only rode it twice. The first time I rode it was on Nassau day around 10:00 am. I had about a 15-20 min. wait. The second time I rode it was coming back from our second day at
Castaway Cay. I'm guessing it was around 2:00 and the line was a little bit longer.....at least a 20 minute wait. By the time I got off the Aquaduck the line was longer. I guess as more people get onto the ship coming from the island, it gets more crowded. I didn't spend a whole lot of time by the kids pool so I didn't notice what the crowds or lines for the aquaduck were like throughout the day. I believe the shortest waits are during dinner and show times. I also read that on the last night of the cruise the lines were nonexistant.
Lines that I noticed/experienced: Cabanas on the first morning for breakfast. WOW! It seemed to me to be total mass confusion. I guess people were still getting to know the ship and people were coming and going every which way. Here's my suggestion (and hopefully your experience will be better than ours)..........since the aft elevators bring you into Cabanas, I would walk a little ways away to the next food station. Hopefully it won't be as congested. If you use the aft elevators to get to Deck 11 where Cabanas and the pool area is, you have to walk through Cabanas to get to the pool. So even if you weren't eating, you still had people walking through to get to the pool which makes it much more congested. I thought I read that the CM's bring you to your table when eating at Cabana's, but that wasn't the case on our trip. (I might have gotten the restaurants mixed up).
On the second morning we tried eating breakfast at Enchanted Garden (buffet). We weren't happy with our experience here for breakfast. We had to wait at least 10 minutes to get into the restaurant. I thought maybe because it was busy and we had to wait for a table to open up...........NOT! The restaurant was empty! Why it took so long to get us to a table, I do not know. The lady with the table arrangements took way too long to place families at a table. Then we had to wait in a line that wrapped around to even get to the buffet. I timed it........from the time we arrived at the restaurant to the time we sat down with our plates was 20 minutes. We were on a tight schedule and missed part of a presentation because we had no idea that it would have taken that long to get breakfast.
After that we did breakfast back at Cabanas and the experience there was much better than the first day.
Another suggestion for Cabana's.........find your table first! It was only DH and I and there were a few times I spent walking around Cabanas looking to see where he was sitting after I had made my plate. The place goes on forever! And there are many different sections to sit in.
Adult pool area.......
The only day I found it to be crowded was the day at sea. We went to that area in the afternoon to listen to the live band and we couldn't find a chair or lounger. This was on Deck 11. I did not try Deck 12.
We participated in the FE with 30 cabins. We had one delivery to Conceirge and the gates were locked. Luckily, a teenager came by with her key and let us in.
We did not eat at Remy or Palo.
Okay, I didn't mean to write a book, but I hope this info. is helpful. Let me know if I can answer any more of your questions.