Having just returned from my first experience on a P&O ship and having been rather impressed with the service. One thing I was looking forward to was seeing the difference between us Brits on a P&O ship compared to other ocean liners when it comes to making that effort in dressing up. Of course the Formal evening you expect to see everyone dressed up but what was pleasing was on the smart casual nights people still made the effort. Others and myself included often wore a jacket with an open collar shirt or a suit without the tie, smart casual but still pretty dressy. The ladies always look good in their dresses.
Other ocean liners just don’t seem to have the same passion as us when it comes to dining and being smartly dressed. I love Royal Caribbean but I have to say the ships I’ve been on tends to only be the Captains gala formal evening that anyone makes an effort and even then you get the disrespectful ones who wear a baseball cap and an oversized shirt. Royal Caribbean seem to be quite lenient when it comes to letting people dine by not enforcing the dress code. I’d returned from a day out on an excursion and before I wanted to get ready for my evening meal I just wanted a drink in the bar. Being a warm day I had shorts on but was refused entry as it had turned 7pm. I respected the decision and went away thinking well done P&O you should enforce a dress code and stand by it. Had this been on Royal Caribbean I would probably have been allowed to enter and have my drink.
It was really nice to see that not just on the formal nights people still made an effort when having the table service. I think us Brits definitely take more pride. I really enjoyed the dining experiences on P&O.
