Vanilla coke has its audience and we enjoy it. It has a real smooth taste to it. Diet coke, which is my most favorite drink on the planet may I drown in it someday, has a kind of spiky taste on the toungue but vanilla coke is smooth like satin. And unlike diet I can burp it through my nose without pain and it smells good doing so.
PS most of you mainlanders wont know what I’m talking about but coke and its variants all have an aftertaste very much like diluted li hing mui. Which is itself an acquired taste, one which I have.
I said this in the blue pepsi thread, but will repeat it here. I am a Coke drinker, don’t like pepsi, although I do enjoy pepsi twist. I didn’t care for vanilla coke. I wouldn’t say that I hate it, but, given my druthers, it’s regular coke for me. However, my daughter got a vanilla coke slurpee yesterday, and I tried it, and found that it was good that way. Unfortunately, it was from a 7-11 in a neighboring city, not the one close to my house.
~V
I like vanilla coke, coke, pepsi, cherry coke, cherry pepsi, and pretty much any pop that I haven’t been drinking every day for the last week. I guess I just have a thing for variety. 
Pepsi is far inferior to Coke. That’s just a fact. Pepsi doesn’t have enough carbonation and surely, not enough bite. It’s “Coke Light” for those who can’t handle the extreme refreshment that Coke brings.
But, to really enjoy a Coke, you must find some that still has sugar in it instead of high-fructose corn syrup. I’m not sure about other nations but in Mexico, you can still find sugared Coke. This is the way it originally was until it was changed in the early 80’s. Now, that has a bite! Mmmmmm:)
As far as the vanilla version, I actually kind of like it once in a while but it pales in comparison to an old-fashioned fountain version.
I have to agree with Misicman here!! We were in cancun a few years back and the coke there almost seemed to have a coconut flavor!!! I found it EXTREMELY better tasting than nere in the states!!
Maybe they use some dirivative of coconut sugar???
I don’t recall a coconut flavor in Cancun. You sure they didn’t put coconut rum in there?