Excursion Timing Conflict with Formal Dinner

Hello all,

My family of four will be sailing the Ruby Princess, out of Seattle, in mid-June. I am under the impression from watching video reviews, that the first formal night is the night we are in Juneau. We have a set dinner time of 6:00pm. We arrive in Juneau at 11am, and have a 12:30 excursion for Whale Watching and Mendenhall Glacier, booked through Juneau Tours. The excursion is supposed to last 5 hours. This means there will be no time to get back to the ship and dress for our 6pm dinner time. I would not worry about it, except that DH really enjoys eating in the main dining room and likes to dress for formal night. He is a bit disappointed. We do not want to eat at a specialty restaurant. Does anyone know if there is a work around for this situation? Can we do anytime dining that evening even though we are not signed up for it? I'm not sure how close to the five hours the tour goes, but maybe we won't be SUPER rushed and can still make our normal dinner if we get back a little early??

Thanks for advice!

Cindy

I'd be VERY surprised if a formal night would be during a Port day, especially as it looks like you are in Juneau until 10:00 PM! The first formal night would likely be the 1st sea day, and the second one probably the day in Ketchikan as it looks like you leave there in the afternoon.

By all means, cancel the excursion and dress for dinner. You can always see whales and glaciers. ;p (I'm a little bit of a smarta$$...) I'm with WisCruiser2, I will bet that there isn't a formal dinner on that day with such a late port departure. If so, I'd skip it - you can always dress up for dinner any other time you like.

Good luck!

Your first formal night is your first sea day, the second night of the cruise. It is absolutely NOT the night you are in Juneau! I have been on this same cruise several times, and know we never had formal night while in port.

Thank you all. I researched more and verified what you are saying. The first formal night is the first sea day, not the Juneau day. Shewww, that makes me feel better!

I tend to attempt to guess the formal nights by doing a process of elimination:

It's never the embarkation night - you need to go to muster, and you need to go to muster more than half-dressed, and you need your suitcases for formal night.

It's never the night before disembarkation - you need to put your suitcases in the hallway.

It's never two nights in a row.

They want lots of photo revenue. They want lots of spa revenue. They're not going to do formal night on a night when they'd put those goals in competition with excursion revenue.

For the Ruby Saturday sailings Seattle to Alaska, I'd expect Sunday (at sea) and Thursday (Ketchikan). Juneau is a late night, Skagway is a late night, College Fjord is 3pm (too many people would skip their spa appointments and/or Platinum Studio appointments), while Ketchikan is 1pm and they're leaving to the south so there's not the allure of watching wildlife heading north through the channel, so Ketchikan makes the most sense.