There is usually an option to buy a ’soft drink’ card which can be a fixed cost (usually high) for all the pop you can drink. I just went with iced tea for the trip.

Re: Diet Pepsi and Coke, I drink Coke by preference and have found I prefer Diet Pepsi to Diet Coke. Just another data point to support the hypothesis.

I did like the cabins mostly. Wasn’t a big fan of how they pushed to twin beds together to make a double, making for a hard ridge down the centre of the bed.

The showers were adequately high for me (I’m 6′2″), and the high hot water pressure was excellent.

The Teppanyaki and sushi were good, and the buffet always had a “carving of the day” with something like roast beef or pork. Ronnie liked the all-you-can-eat ice cream cone bar! Michael was a fan of the chocolate milk, which was botteld, quite rich, and not always available.

The entertainment was okay I guess. The shows weren’t heavy on narrative, which I would have preferred. They were more like spectacles and musicals. I was surprised there wasn’t a movie theatre aboard. That would have been a good idea.

The video arcade plainly sucked. Old games. Nobody ever went in. Most people had more exciting games on their iPods.

The “Tech room” was just an empty room with power and ethernet, presumably to hook up to the paid-for internet connection. Boats should really have two tiers of connectivity, and should offer both in cabins. Both a free shipboard-only connection and a paid-for optional full internet connection. Then guests could play games against each other. The ship could even have an shpboard website for hooking people up, and leaving notes, etc. There’s tons of free apps for doing this. Pick one.

The casino took up too much space, and was smokey.

All the ports we visited did not have Diet Coke. All they had was “Coke Light”, which tastes like Coke. The reason I drink Diet Coke is that it tastes like Pepsi. (And I hear that Diet Pepsi tastes like Coke, so we have symmetry).