This was our first Christmas/New Year's cruise. The overall value was diminished somewhat by the fact that it was a sold out "holiday" cruise. This means that there were few, if any discounts or upgrades. My personal opinion is that RCCL treats the Rhapsody as their "cash cow", meaning that it is always full, the itinerary is a steady seller and they know they have safe income from this pairing. Unfortunately for the traveler, it means that the ship does not get the maintenance and attention that it needs (this is a 1997 ship). The crew turnover is unacceptable. Everyone we talked to was either new to the ship, the line or itinerary or this was their last cruise. This is very disappointing as it makes for confusion.
The cruise director was not "in charge" of his staff and they didn't seem to know each other very well. The port and shopping guide didn't seem to know the ports well.
There were two very irritating events, first: the daily Compass frequently had times and places for events wrong causing passengers to wander around looking for events. Often we stumbled on fun things that were left off the Compass schedule. When the announcements were made the times were wrong there too. Also, when the English-Spanish translation was done immediately following the English version, those times did not agree. How frustrating.