Minniesota,
Our kids are boys, 13, 8, 3. We're part of the EP travel sports machine and Eagan is a rival. We are flying down Thursday (10:20 NWA flight) and staying at the Beach Club for a couple of days. Driving down Saturday AM. You have probably figured out by now that airfare was difficult to get this year at least for us. It was always expensive and filled up pretty fast.
We have the late seating and are VERY happy with it. Around 5:00PM, we have either just boarded the ship - we prefer to be at sailaway party or up top somewhere taking in the scenery with cocktails as the ship sails into the sunset rather than rushing off to shower. Our kids typically graze on food throughout the day so the 8:00-8:30 seating is never a big deal.
Last year we went to Orient Beach on our own after carefully researching opinions of other families that have gone there (do a search, here and at cruise critic). There is a little topless nudity (10%?) - the boys did not even notice at first - got around to doing some double takes, but quickly went on with their beach activities: boogie boarding, playing in the waves and sand, swimming. They pretty much did that all day - I rented a wave runner for a hour and that was definately a blast, but I did not even need to do that. We rented a seat/umbrella from Bikinis - had seafood appetizers, lunch, cocktails - plenty of room. There is NO comparison between Orient Beach and the beach that is at the cruise ship Pier. The water nice, the sand is white, but there is good wave action. If you want, there is an outfit there that will boat you over to Pinel for snorkelling - we considered that but we ended up being content with what we had.
Last I heard, there was construction going on at Dawn beach.
We are in Hutchinson Island and leave for Disney in 3 days. I'll be hit/miss checking boards during that time so hopefully nothing exciting happens without me! 
