Formal dress proportion

On a Med cruise on Odyssey next month, will the majority of men be wearing dinner jackets on our 'formal optional' night or would I be in a small minority? I can't decide what to pack!

I thought I'd be able to get an answer to this from existing posts but have been unable to do so.

Thanks in anticipation.

Dave

In the Med in high season, on a short-ish cruise, it's unlikely that the majority of men will be wearing dinner jackets on formal night.

My husband always takes his, even on the shorter warm weather cruises when we know he'll be in the minority. He feels comfortable in it though, so do whatever makes you feel comfortable.

Not so many passengers these days always dress up for formal nights. We stopped taking our dinner jackets some years back as it was a hassle packing and then wearing for only two or three nights. We saw many gentleman on our last cruise ( Indian Ocean) really quite informal particularly if there were eating in the sky grill or Colonnade.

Have lovely cruise.

Kind regards,

Tony

Dave A - I think you would be in the minority by some way - but do it if you want to of course. My DH's favoured option now is a jacket, which you need on other evenings anyway, but for him definitely with a 'business' shirt and tie on optional formals. And smart trousers, not chinos etc.

We were in the Med on Sojourn in May and less than 10% of men would have worn dinner suits.

May i suggest you take a suit, then you can utilise the trousers for the less formal nights with a shirt. Then you have all that is required dress code wise.

We are finding men are now wearing more dark suits than tuxes.

We will be on our 3rd med cruise in July. My husband brought his tux on the first cruise, and was in the minority (we were on a 14-day cruise). He will bring a dinner jacket, dress shirt and slacks this time. We are not going to lug around so much fancy dress this time.

But I anticipate the majority of evenings we are likely to end up on the Colonnade anyway. It would be nice to have more casual but nice shirts be acceptable there for dinner (polos, etc.)

Yes, a formal collared shirt, NOT a polo shirt is the minimum requirement in the colonnade.

Thank you all for your quick and helpful responses. Thank you also for being too polite to tell me I should have asked my question on the sticky dress code thread instead of starting a new one!

I will leave my formal outfit at home and take a jacket and trousers that I can make more use of.

Yes Dave, i think the dark suit option will take you through formal to the elegant casual option.

On our most recent Med cruise, the first one since the dress code was relaxed to Resort Casual most evenings (which I love btw), it appeared that most passengers made more of an effort to dress up for the one evening.

On our most recent Med cruise, the first one since the dress code was relaxed to Resort Casual most evenings (which I love btw), it appeared that most passengers made more of an effort to dress up for the one evening.

Resort casual doesnt exist now, does it?

New dress code for us was only formal and elegant casual.

Formal OPTIONAL and elegant casual.

I believe the elegant casual has been done away with.

As per the website - on the FAQs page - and the latest travel docs I received last week, the one that been done away with is Resort Casual.

As i have previously said the options are now formal or elegant casual.

So am I correct in concluding that Formal only ever applies to the Restaurant whereas every other venue is always Elegant Casual?

One thing that some people overlook is that you may dress as formal and dressy as you wish in any dining venue on any evening.

The dress code is merely a guide as to the minimum requirement.

Most guests look just fine in whatever they choose to wear.

There are a very small few that try to dress as they would at home when ordering in a pizza.

Thankfully they are a rare sight on Seabourn,although I hear that some other lines attract this attire.

I was on the Odyssey recently from Athens to Venice and there was only one formal night. Just about everyone dressed up though I don't remember seeing many tuxes or DJs. Mostly just suits or even jacket and ties. The thing to note is that formal or not every evening most people dressed very well. They looked very smart and, yes "elegant", even when they were without jackets and ties. Even during the day when technically there is no dress code many people were quite well dressed.