Cruise Attire Questions
 

It has been more than 10 years since I went on a cruise, so I am unsure as to the current appropriate cruise attire, in particular for dinner. I believe the last time I cruised, I wore a dress (something suitable for church) to dinner each night. I'm seeing somewhat conflicting guidelines for how to dress for dinner. Is it necessary for women to wear dresses/skirts to dinner, or are pants such as khakis or capris also appropriate? I know things are probably more casual than they were several years ago. Thanks for your comments.

I can only speak for Princess, and some lines are more casual than others. On a non-formal night, the dress code is "smart casual" (sometimes called country-club casual) and I would normally wear something less dressy than what I typically might call "suitable for church". I might add that some itineraries are less formal than others too and I've only cruised (5 times) to the Caribbean. I often wear (and I'm 48 as a point of reference) a sleeveless summer dress with matching short sleeved jacket, or lightweight colored cotton slacks with matching top, crinkly-rayon color-matched separates, or other lightweight casual wear - but jeans and shorts are never allowed in the dining room at dinner. You will see a lot of capris and khakis with tops. We wear business-casual at work and most of those items are fine for dinner on the ship also.

On formal night you will see everything from nice black slacks paired with a sparkly or sequined top to beaded ball gowns. I try to find a happy medium :-)

Follow-up question - what is considered "formal" on an Alaska Cruisetour? It seems that we could take on ton of clothes for this one. Is it really necessary as the "tour" portion is limited to one small carry on size bag? And what does Princess do with the rest of the luggage during the tour part?

Just wanted to say that if you don't get enough info here, browse the boards at cruisecritic.com - you will find a lot more cruise info, the boards are very active there and the search function works well.

Lanord, you didn't mention your cruiseline or destination. Someone mentioned Alaska, is this your destination? If so we didn't have any formal nights on our Radisson Alaskan Cruise. I'm guessing other cruiselines within Alaska are the same. Country Club casual seems to be the standard evening wear in Alaska.

Thanks for your comments. We are going on the NCL Crown the 2nd week of June (7 days) to Bermuda. According to NCL's website, there will probably be 1 or 2 formal nights, the rest would be "casual".