Cruise tips, coping with dress codes

Do all cruise lines have dress codes? Well, they all offer some guidelines – although sometimes they are only a somewhat confusing statement like ‘resort casual’. The more casual end of the market: easyCruise, Island Cruises and Ocean Village, will all allow people to dress down at all times, although shorts and jeans are usually banned at dinner, and bare feet are not allowed in dining rooms at any time. At the other end of the scale, the most formal of the lines such as Cunard and P&O will have at least one and most likely two formal dinners in a two-week cruise, and these will require men to wear a dark suit or a tuxedo, while women should wear an ‘evening’ dress, although these days it can be long or short. In the middle of these two extremes, it’s certainly true that ‘formal dress’ is becoming less popular and less enforced – for example, men are tending to wear suits and ties on formal nights, rather than dinner jackets on many lines. Be sure to carry a smart sweater or jacket as cruise line air-conditioning can be ferocious.