What do people REALLY wear at dinner?

[traveler916]

Husband took his navy blue blazer on our first Oceania cruise (which also was our first-ever cruise) way back in 2008. Never has taken a sports jacket with him on a cruise since.

 

Exactly! To the OP...I too don't have any pictures of people eating. I have pictures of our cabin, coming into port, my wife on the balcony....and I was so impressed with the Lobster Salad at Terrace I really should take a picture of that!

 

I brought a jacket on my first cruise and never wore it and didn't bother after that. Any sort of slacks and shirt with a collar work.

 

gary

[digtexas]

Husband took his navy blue blazer on our first Oceania cruise (which also was our first-ever cruise) way back in 2008. Never has taken a sports jacket with him on a cruise since. On the other hand, he always wears a long-sleeve dress shirt to dinner, what he says is business casual clothing such as he usually wears now to his office.

 

Same here. I took a blazer on my first O cruise, which was Caribbean and only wore it once. This past summer on a British Isles cruise on Marina (which, by the way, had a much more nicely dressed crowd than did my Caribbean cruise) I did not take a sports jacket and was never uncomfortable. I wear a nice shirt and slacks at night, with a sweater handy if it is cold, and I am completely comfortable. This is coming from a guy who has taken both a blazer and a tuxedo on several Crystal cruises. However I will not be doing that again. (Crystal has gone to only casual and one or two "formal optional" nights, which still requires a sport coat, which does cause a gent to either drag along a sports jacket or stay out of the main dining venues for the one or two "formal optional" nights.) I prefer Oceania's dress requirements and assume that Crystal will have to drop the "formal optional" evenings altogether in the near future. On our upcoming Caribbean cruise on Riviera I will not be bringing a jacket.

[pratzert]

It's been a couple of years since we did our cruise on the Insignia, but at dinner we saw people dressed in all fashions EXCEPT slovenly.

 

The men wore nice, but comfortable, garb such as Polo shirts and slacks at the very least.

 

I seem to recall that a slight majority of men wore a sport coat and dress slacks, some wore ties and some did not. I never saw a pair of jeans at Dinner. But breakfast and lunch were open season for shorts and jeans.

 

I wore a nice dress shirt (tucked in) and slacks some evenings but mostly wore a sport coat with no tie and dress slacks.

 

Women always looked elegant to me, either in a pants suit, cocktail dress and sometimes they wore gowns. It's all in what you want.

Edited January 13, 2015 by pratzert

[Mura]

I have posted before -- not here, I think -- about a couple we dined with on a recent cruise. He had on a nice suit and tie, it was early in the cruise. One of his first questions pertained to the dress code.

 

I informed him (as his TA had not) that it was "casual" ... and I agree that this definition isn't always very clear. But he'd looked around and saw that he was the only man in a suit and tie! We saw him the next night in Polo and he was dressed more casually. He was very grateful for the info I gave him ...

 

Yes, it's true, that sometimes people dress more casually -- especially in Terrace in the evening. But speaking for myself, if we're having dinner in Terrace it's because we had a long day, are tired, and don't want to change clothes. So we may offend those who would like more formal attire in all restaurants. (But we don't wear cut-offs or torn jeans ...)

 

We dress up a bit more for the specialty restaurants, even for the GDR. And if we're really tired and we're in a suite, we will order in on the nights when we've had a very long day. I'd rather go to a restaurant, but not if I have to change!

 

Mura