Cruises, Cruise Deals & Cruise Holidays

I agree, Tiesdell. Me and my husband started cruising in the early 90s and I immediately fell in love with cruise holidays and the dressing up for formal evenings. Through the years our kids have grown up dressing formally on formal nights and now they are teens, they still do so. However, I think that with the growing popularity of cruises and the increasing number of informal cruise holidays, many people are unaware of how special the formal evenings used to be. I loved looking at the other evening dresses and the smart suits, and formal evenings were a good excuse to push the boat out and dress up! I never ever get a chance to do this otherwise.

I'm 18 and I always dress up for formal nights! Just because times are changing, it doesn't mean the rules of the ship should be broken. If you don't want to do as the ship says, then don't go on it...Simples. Please don't put the "younger customer" in the same boat! And finally there are plenty of stylish formal outfits out there, maybe you haven't found them yet.

If there is one thing that annoys memore than anything is people who can't be bothered to change out of a pair of jeans for an evening meal, whether it is on a ship or a restaurant, but having said that, we always take our evening wear with us and if we have been on a tour and are feeling tired and don't feel like 'dressing up' we shower, change into something reasonably smart and eat in the Windjammer (we always cruise with Royal Caribbean). The nice thing about cruising is the choice to do what you feel like. On our last cruise on the Independence, Transatlantic, in April, we were on a tabe for 8, stuck up a corner by the entrance to the kitchens, with only us and another couple who turned up each evening. (We thought we had been relegated to the naughty boy's corner.) Perhaps when booking people are asked if they want to use the main dining room in the evening, rather than what sitting they would prefer, this problem would not occur. We were very lucky and had a very nice couple to share with. but there were a lot of empty chairs around the dining room for second sitting , however, everyone dressed appropriately. JT.

Mr Styles I completely agree with your comments about the more casual approach to the dress code in cruising. At the lower end of the market there are lines such as Ocean Village & the more upscale such as Azamara & above who promote the country casual approach. I like you, am all in favour of the option that these lines promote, but in the case of RCI, Celebrity & others, the dress code of the evening is clearly stated on the top right hand side of the daily cruise sheet & anyone who doesn’t comply with that is typical of the modern attitude of ‘stuff everybody, I’ll do as I please’. Your host, i.e. the cruise company, made a request but you choose to ignore it & in my book that height of ignorance even though your two hundred quid jeans don’t hold a candle to the guy in the £35 dinner suit from Asda. Yes the times they are a changin’, sadly for the worse……..Wilba

I do agree it is very nice that people do dress for the odd few formal nights surely this is part of a lovely holiday after all the price you pay for the cruises dont you want something special I certanly do.In the week is it asking to much for people to be dressed nice to dine I for one dont like to see jeans football shirts etc and I might add I am not a fudy duddy but feel that if this is what customers want to do on holiday go to the self service areas there is enough on board but dont lower the tone in the lovely dining rooms.

By "the modern attitude" I presume you mean young people? If you don't then I take back this comment. As I said to Styles, please do not assume all young people think "stuff everybody, I'll do as I please," because they don't.