Formal Dinners

If you do not wish to attend the formal dinners, are you able to visit a different restaurant or eat in you own cabin (have booked a balcony cabin).

The buffet is the best choice imo on these nights. The dining rooms have a formal dress code on those nights but the horizon court buffet does not. You will however see formal dressed people sometime eating there also

Of course you can skip the formal dinner in the DR but you'll find that it's not as formal as you my believe.

That's up to you to decide for yourself.

Dressing up in either formal or dressed down to nice casual clothing will suffice.

They're not that strict about it as they used to be years ago.

Thanks for your replies, this our first cruise.

Or you can book the specialty restaurants (for additional fee), they are always "Smart Casual."

Thanks for your replies, this our first cruise.

Congratulations. I hope it’s a good experience. Until a few years ago we always did land based independent trips. Before and during the early years if the internet that wasn’t very easy as information about some destinations was sometimes hard to come by. We’ve now gotten to a point where we like the flexibility the cruises offer without all of the planning for how to get from place to place.

These boards along with trip advisor is a treasure trove of information.

If you like or want to eat in the Main Dining Room, don't let Formal Night deter you. It usually has fun and good menu choices and is a nice experience. I (lady) just wear black slacks and a nice top, not even that fancy. My DH wears slacks and a nice collared shirt sometimes with and sometimes without a tie. That's it. No big dressing up thing and let you feel dressed just fine. Now if you are a complete t-shirt, shorts, jeans, kind of person, than yea, go to the buffet or do room service, but don't be thinking tuxes, fancy long dresses in order to go to formal night in the main dining room, especially with Caribbean or Mexican itineraries! Either way, just enjoy your cruise!

Pooh

If you do not wish to attend the formal dinners, are you able to visit a different restaurant or eat in you own cabin (have booked a balcony cabin).

If you don't want to dress up (suit, tux, dress pants/sport coat, dress pants/shirt/tie, etc all fine, cocktail dress/maxi dress, dressy pants and top, etc all good) for the Main Dining room formal nights - you can dine in the buffet, which often has most of the same items along with more choices, specialty restaurants -which are always smart casual, International Cafe (if the ship has one), Alfredo's (again, if ship has that venue), room service, Prego Pizza, Trident Grill (which adds some extra items for dinner like chicken breast, chili, wings, etc)... You won't go hungry.

You may w a nt fo give formal nights a try - the main dining g room menu is often a little better that night with things like lobster or beef wellington, etc...

Enjoy your first cruise!

I've seen seen men wearing T-shirts, jeans and tennis shoes. One man on a 17 night cruise wore the same thing every night...T-shirt, red suspenders, jeans.

Usually women manage to wear something that's at least a little dressy, but that seems to be built into our genes.;p

If you do not wish to attend the formal dinners, are you able to visit a different restaurant or eat in you own cabin (have booked a balcony cabin).

If you go by the MDR early in the day you will see the menu for that evening. This ay you can decide if you want to eat there or not. Ask the MTR'D about dress and go by what he allows for formal nights. Then decide where you want to dine that night.

Enjoy your first cruise as it will set your desire to take more.

Black slacks dress shirt for men is all that is needed. Black slacks with nice top or cute dress fir women. Made the mistake of packing 2 suits and several shirts for hubby and two long dresses for me last month. Never again

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Black slacks dress shirt for men is all that is needed. Black slacks with nice top or cute dress fir women. Made the mistake of packing 2 suits and several shirts for hubby and two long dresses for me last month. Never again

 

 

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2 suits !

You should have been reading the Princess thread on Cruise Critic before you left on your cruise. It might have saved you some packing aggravation.