Hi everyone,<BR><BR>I am unclear about formal night attire. I'm not talking a Radisson cruise, I'll be on Carnival. Normally I'm a casual dresser so I want to know what I will need to bring for this. There are many posts here and elsewhere that say men should wear a tux or a dark suit. How about you ladies? Lets get descriptive here please! I'm really confused about what exactly formal is for a carnival cruise.<BR><BR>Thanks for your help.

We were just on the Carnival Legend.<BR>There were two formal nights....men wore suits with ties or sportcoats/tie. Some did have tuxedos. My husband just wore a dark suit, dress shirt and tie.<BR>Women wore anything from short cocktail dresses to pantsuits to long sequined gowns. I had a black pantsuit for one night and an offwhite long dress that I wore as the mother of the bride at my daughters wedding. Figured I would never wear it again so it was nice to get another evening out of it.<BR>There are other dining options if you don't like to dress up.<BR>I am also a casual dresser but it was kind of fun to be able to get dressed up for a night or two.<BR>

The booklet that Carnival will send you with your tickets has a nice detailed section in it with information that should help as well.<BR>Since you say you don't know what &quot;Exactly formal is for a carnival cruise&quot; you may think this line is different (ignore the nay-sayers you have seen posting here in the past, I've sailed all the major lines and Carnival is NOT that different). The expectation of &quot;formal&quot; on formal night is no different than any other major line such such as Royal Caribbean, Princess, NCL, etc. Hope this helps. I doubt you'll get may more responses to this post since it has been asked and answered so many times here before.

Hold - you're dreaming if you think the expectation for formal wear on Carnival is the same as on Celebrity or Princess. The passenger demographics are totally different, therefore the formal attire expectations are also. I'd say the percentage of men who wear tuxedos on say the Millenium or the Grand is about 60% while on the Pride it might hit 10%. These are facts based on personal experiences.<BR><BR>Peter

I have also sailed the same ships Peter and I could not disagree more. I just got back from the Victory and on formal night there were very few who were not in formal wear. <BR>Can you post anything positive on this board or must you continue to phrase everything in the negative?

I agreee that ghe expectations are different on some of the other lines, HAL included. My husband always wears a tux and I wear a gown or sequined dress/top long skirt combo on formal nights. We think formal nights are part of a real cruise experience. Therefore we personally choose cruise lines where we would expect more people to dress for formal nights. Just one of the reasons we do not cruise on Carnival ships.

We have only been on one cruise, which was the Carnival Legend, and most everyone was dressed to the hilt on the two formal nights. I don't have any other cruises to compare to but I did find that everyone, even children, were dressed more formal than what I had been led to believe.<BR>Maybe you just haven't cruised the right Carnival ships.<BR>There were even little boys in tuxedos.<BR>This was a fabulous ship and I have no complaints about anything.<BR>We went with 5 other couples who had been on several cruises amongst them on several different lines and they all were impressed...<BR>

Hi: Just back from Voyager of the Seas RCCL. Formal night two nights were long dresses to very dressy cocktail length for woman and dark suits or tuxedos for men. For children many had suits and most had at the least black pants and white shirt and tie , vest. It was nice to dress up. We have been on three carnival cruises also and I would say the formal nights were about the same. Karen