I owned a Wacom Intuos 9x12 tablet until recently. I bought a house and the desk I was using wouldn't fit through the doorways. The desk I use at the moment is much too small for a large tablet so I sold it. I loved the tablet though. I used it for photoshop projects, CC2 projects, and 3D Studio Max projects. I really found that I preferred the tactile feel of the pen much better than a mouse for those applications. I still used my trusty MS Wireless mouse for most Windows activities though. I do miss that tablet.
Congratulations on your recent aquisition.
For me, there wasn't a large learning curve. I'd say just pick a photoshop project and use the tablet with it till you get the feel of the tablet. The only thing that threw me was the need to "tap" the pen to "click". I kept wanting to drag the pen around on the tablet to move the cursor, but you only need to hover over the tablet. It takes a bit of getting used to, but I felt the payoff was worth it. Have fun with your new tablet!