Informal dress vs. Casual dress

[emilysmom]

Hi. I was looking at my booklet for our upcoming Bermuda cruise on the Zenith. Under the Evening Wear section it list three types of dress: Formal, Casual and Informal.

Casual is described pantsuit or sporty outfit for women and sport shirt and slacks for men.

Informal is described as a dress or pants outfit for women and a jacket, shirt and tie for men.

How strictly should we follow the requested dress code for Informal nights? We've been on other cruises (different cruise lines) and except for formal nights, we wore mostly what Celebrity calls "Casual". My hubby would wear a long sleeved shirt and dockers and I would wear a pair of slacks or a skirt and a blouse. Is this too casual for Informal nights? Thanks.

Countdown to Bermuda on the Zenith
[img]http://escati.linkopp.net/cgi-bin/countdown.cgi?trgb=000000&srgb=00ff00&prgb=00ffff&cdt=2004;06;26;16;30;00&timezone=GMT-0400[/img]

[mnwildfan2]

We were on an Alaskan cruise, but the clothing that you describe is what most people wore on Informal nights. There were also quite a few men who wore the coat and tie though and many women made sure that there blouse was a little dressier (like silk, or having some time of embellishments).

Jen

1st Cruise on Celebrity Mercury - Alaska 6/4/2004

[birders]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
Is this too casual for Informal nights [on Celebrity]?
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes. Please follow the dress code. As has been written in MANY threads on the subject, it is part of the entire ambience of the Celebrity evening. "Informal" really, as everyone says, should be redefined as "Semi-formal."

Your husband can do without the tie (the daily program onboard doesn't mention tie) but the jacket is listed.

[hdawson]

Tie on informal night (semi-formal) is now optional.

[kitty9]

Informal means dress slacks and shirt with a coat for the men (tie optional), nice dress or pantsuit for the women. On our Summit cruise many of the men chose to wear the tie on the informal nights. If you chose to dine in the alternate, extra charge, restaurant, a jacket is required. Casual is collared sports shirt and dockers type slacks for the men and slacks and top, sundress, or capris and nice top for the women. Regardless of what some might say, Celebrity is a more dressy line when it comes to formal and informal/semiformal nights. And with the exception of a very few people, the passengers stay dressed in the attire of the evening for the whole evening---they don't go back to their rooms after dinner and change into shorts or jeans.

Darcie

[2tsquared]

Having just (and I mean today) returned from Summit's southbound cruise in Alaska, the "Informal" night was observed by perhaps half of the passengers. While the 2 formal nights seemed to encourage following the "rules" for the evening, casual nights included many passengers in blue jeans -- which are supposedly prohibited in the main dining room -- but a rule that was definitely not enforced on our cruise this past week.

The informal night was scheduled after a full day of activities in Ketchikan and I believe that most people were just too tired to dress up for the evening; therefore, casual dress seemed to rule in place of the "informal" attire requested (there were even some individuals in shorts in the Casino that evening). Personally, we felt that an "informal" evening should be eliminated in favor of another casual night.

That said, I would encourage you to dress in accordance with the dress code of the evening. My husband and I did -- and, as such, we actually enjoyed returning from our shore adventures in our hiking boots and jeans to changing into clean and fresh dinner clothes.

I will be posting a review of our cruise in the next few days. Our feeling on this particular issue is: if Celebrity wishes to set a rule ("no jeans in the dining room"), then they need to enforce it. What we found was that as the cruise progressed, people were getting more and more casual each evening (perhaps "pushing the limits" to see if Celebrity would enforce their rule?). Obviously, Celebrity staff chose to allow passengers leeway in the dress code this past week.

Jeans or not -- have a great cruise!

2tsquared