This was our first ever cruise and after picking up a number of ideas from these forums before the trip I thought it only fair to add some of our own.
We did the 8 night 7 day cruise from Sydney up to New Caledonia with stop offs at Noumea, Mare and the Isle of Pines.
CHECKIN AND BOARDING
We had a starboard window room amid ships on level 1, the bottom deck, with ample space for two adults and one child (9 years). The single bed folds out of the roof like a bunk. The room was small, but comfortable with enough space and storage for the time we spent in it. No noise from above or below. Minimal engine noise. Expect there would have been more noise towards the back.
Inside the room there is a free safe and one Australian 240v powerpoint. We brought a traditional double adaptor on board, but were unable to use it due to the position of the plug. Ie it was nearly flush with the bench height. No sign of power boards being prohibited. iPhone particularly search aggressively for network, so best to consider Airplane mode and then just enable WiFi.
INTERNET ACCESS
Two cruise long plans where available
* $50 for a single device
* $120 for a plan you could move between devices
Upload and download speeds where quite reasonable ~170Kbps, very viable for email, posting photos Facebook, iPhone games etc. There were notes about the blocking of Skype / YouTube and other high bandwidth apps, but these controls didn't appear enabled on our cruise.
With either plan you need to log in again roughly once a day. i.e. When it stops, you just login again.