Dress Up dinner events

[glennbtn]

Hi All

 

How do I find out what days and how many days are the posh dress up evenings?  I have printed off the full itinerary but it just says freedom dining

 

Thanks

[eddie11]

Use this link

https://ask.pocruises.com/help/PO/life-on-board/dress_code_all.html

 

Most questions are answered on the P&O site but they have made searching really difficult and non-intuitive.  Ho hum

 

(You don’t get prior info which are the formal nights, but they are pretty much always on sea days.  You’ll be told when you board)

Edited September 4, 2019 by eddie11
Added final sentence

[AndyMichelle]

Rule of thumb, 2 formal nights in 7.

Your CP should tell you how many, but as Eddie says, you won't know which nights until you are on board.

Andy

[jeanlyon]

Freedom dining just means you go to the restaurant whenever you want.  The formal nights just means those are the nights you dress up.  You can guess that the 2nd night on board will be formal as a rule.

 

[dazlight]

On a 2 week cruise it’s usually 4 formal nights.  

[Goosebear Mum]

Some other guidelines. Formal black tie nights are not on the first or last nights, nor on port days (unless leaving port early.). We have not had them on consecutive nights either.

 

By using the link provided in an earlier reply, you can generally narrow down when the formal black tie nights *may* be.

 

There are exceptions, e.g. 2 night and port intensive cruises. On port intensive cruises with no sea days during the cruise, look for which ports you’ll leave early. 

 

To be honest, I am never bothered beforehand. As long as I know how many. When I get onboard I look for which nights have the special buffet nights we enjoy (e.g. Indian) when the formals are, etc. 

Edited September 5, 2019 by Goosebear Mum

[jeanlyon]

My cruise personaliser tells me 4 formal nights for our 17 night cruise.

[Denarius]

In the days when I sailed on The Ark (Noah was a wonderful captain but some of the other passengers behaved like animals) the dress code for the evening depended on the ships movements that day. The first and last nights were casual, as were evenings in port or when the ship sailed after dinner. Days at sea were formal. All other evenings were informal, which meant jackets for men and was the default dress code. So you knew the dress code from what the ship had done that day. But this convention meant that the mix of dress codes could vary widely from cruise to cruise, so P&O replaced it in favour of having a standard mix. So nowadays the only way to know the dress code for the evening is by looking at the ships newspaper.

[glennbtn]

Thanks All

 

I am not bothered what days they are toby honest, but the wife would like to know how many there will be. I can't seem to find anything in the planner for this with the 12 night cruise.

 

May be it's to far ahead for this info.

[jeanlyon]

Have you looked in your Cruise Personaliser.  For 12 nights my guess would be 3 formal.

[davemorton]

On 9/5/2019 at 1:13 PM, Goosebear Mum said:

Some other guidelines. Formal black tie nights are not on the first or last nights, nor on port days (unless leaving port early.). We have not had them on consecutive nights either.

 

By using the link provided in an earlier reply, you can generally narrow down when the formal black tie nights *may* be.

 

There are exceptions, e.g. 2 night and port intensive cruises. On port intensive cruises with no sea days during the cruise, look for which ports you’ll leave early. 

 

To be honest, I am never bothered beforehand. As long as I know how many. When I get onboard I look for which nights have the special buffet nights we enjoy (e.g. Indian) when the formals are, etc. 

Thats always the problem.  I like a formal night, but love the Indian buffet more, yet my companion likes the restaurant on formal night. 

Edit:  They should put a couple of decent unusual curries (ie not tikka chicken masala) on the menu if the formal night is on Indian night. 

Edited September 6, 2019 by davemorton

[Ranchi]

They used to do a very passable biryani in MDR but I haven’t seen it for a while. We haven’t used the buffet for the Indian themed evening since they stopped the system where you had to book for it. We mean to each cruise but never get round to it. Also I think the sense of occasion has evaporated a little. As far as I can see almost every evening in the buffet has a theme. (Not a bad thing, I hasten to add.) 

[jeanlyon]

yes agree.  The food is good, but there is little ambience.  Mostly crew up there.

[majortom10]

The Indian themed buffet is not anywhere near as good as when it used to be the whole buffet area and themed for the whole evening and you had to book it. The reason is since the introduction of Sindhu the Indian buffet night is just a normal buffet with a couple of main Indian meals and a few side appetisers.

Edited September 7, 2019 by majortom10

[grapau27]

On 9/4/2019 at 3:32 PM, glennbtn said:

Hi All

 

How do I find out what days and how many days are the posh dress up evenings?  I have printed off the full itinerary but it just says freedom dining

 

Thanks

Formal nights are usually on sea days and often day 2 and day 6 on a 7 night cruise.

We got off Ventura 30th August and over 95% off people were dressed up and P&O enforced this in MDR and Speciality restaurants plus in Metropolis and Red Bar.

[Goosebear Mum]

28 minutes ago, majortom10 said:

The Indian themed buffet is not anywhere near as good as when it used to be the whole buffet area and themed for the whole evening and you had to book it. The reason is since the introduction of Sindhu the Indian buffet night is just a normal buffet with a couple of main Indian meals and a few side appetisers.

 

Not from our experience on Aurora, for the last few years. Very long queues, and almost the whole buffet menu was a large range of Indian choices (harder for the few who wanted non Indian food...)  certainly not just ‘a couple of mains’.  Maybe Aurora has been particularly good, or we’ve been particularly lucky! 

[Goosebear Mum]

12 hours ago, davemorton said:

Thats always the problem.  I like a formal night, but love the Indian buffet more, yet my companion likes the restaurant on formal night. 

Edit:  They should put a couple of decent unusual curries (ie not tikka chicken masala) on the menu if the formal night is on Indian night. 

 

So far we’ve been lucky, and the Indian night hasn’t ever clashed with formal night. I think formal night would win for us, but it would be a hard decision... Agree, we always wish they’d be some good Indian options in the MDR, esp on formal night. 

[terrierjohn]

17 minutes ago, Goosebear Mum said:

 

So far we’ve been lucky, and the Indian night hasn’t ever clashed with formal night. I think formal night would win for us, but it would be a hard decision... Agree, we always wish they’d be some good Indian options in the MDR, esp on formal night. 

We always hope Indian night does clash with a formal, that way we can miss one of the, too many, formal nights, and enjoy a good curry as well.😉

[dgs1956]

We would never miss a Formal Night to go to the canteen for dinner even for an Indian meal.

[grapau27]

11 minutes ago, dgs1956 said:

We would never miss a Formal Night to go to the canteen for dinner even for an Indian meal.

I don't particularly like Indian food but if we did we would go to Sindu restaurant.

I have only once in 51 cruises went to the buffet for dinner.

[dgs1956]

20 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

I don't particularly like Indian food but if we did we would go to Sindu restaurant.

I have only once in 51 cruises went to the buffet for dinner.

Sindhu is excellent and like yourself we have only used the buffet for dinner a couple of times over the year mainly because no matter how hard we try it just seems to be a rush. We're on holiday and like something a bit more special. We also prefer to use the MDR for breakfast when we can.

[Denarius]

For the benefit of recent converts to P&O, the Indian Buffet was a special evening in the days when the buffet did not normally open for dinner, and select and freedom dining had not yet been invented. There were two separate sittings, at the same times as those in the MDR. Attendance was by ticket only and you were allocated to a specific table. The food was invariably excellent and demand for tickets was high. There was no extra charge.

[majortom10]

6 hours ago, Goosebear Mum said:

 

Not from our experience on Aurora, for the last few years. Very long queues, and almost the whole buffet menu was a large range of Indian choices (harder for the few who wanted non Indian food...)  certainly not just ‘a couple of mains’.  Maybe Aurora has been particularly good, or we’ve been particularly lucky! 

We have been on Aurora in the past when the whole buffet area was turned over to and Indian buffet. They used to decorate the area and put Indian flags up and all the staff wore Indian dress and you had to book tickets even though it was free in advance because it was so popular but that was many years ago. On Ventura, Azura and Britannia they have a theme every night and on occasion it was Indian we went to look and it was just a normal buffet meal with just a few different courses of Indian food and nothing else special like it used to be. Perhaps they do it different on Aurora, which we havent been on for a few years, because we have not experienced an Indian buffet night like it used to be for many a year.

[SargassoPirate]

I have a question.  I am considering my first P&O cruise in 2022.  Just waiting for the schedule to be announced.  I'm following discussions here to gain an idea of what to expect.  Normally, in the daytime, I wear shorts and a T-shirt.  Some of my T-shirts are Harley-Davidson logo shirts from destinations where I have ridden.  I find they are great converation starters and I have even met other riders on board with whom I have exchanged hometown Harley T-shirts after the cruise.  As I was reading the on board dress code, I noticed this statement:

 

"Any clothing that features inappropriate or offensive language, including novelty clothing with printed images or slogans, will not be allowed on board."

 

Does P&O consider Harley T-shirts as "novelty clothing"?

 

 

 

 

 

[dgs1956]

3 minutes ago, SargassoPirate said:

I have a question.  I am considering my first P&O cruise in 2022.  Just waiting for the schedule to be announced.  I'm following discussions here to gain an idea of what to expect.  Normally, in the daytime, I wear shorts and a T-shirt.  Some of my T-shirts are Harley-Davidson logo shirts from destinations where I have ridden.  I find they are great converation starters and I have even met other riders on board with whom I have exchanged hometown Harley T-shirts after the cruise.  As I was reading the on board dress code, I noticed this statement:

 

"Any clothing that features inappropriate or offensive language, including novelty clothing with printed images or slogans, will not be allowed on board."

 

Does P&O consider Harley T-shirts as "novelty clothing"?

 

 

 

 

 

Personally I would say definitely not. I'm not a biker but no way can that type of t-shirt be offensive in any way. I think the novelty shirts are more aimed at hen and stag parties but I may be wrong.