My Honest Assessment about Dress Code on Coral Princess to Alaska

[door60]

I know many of you are stressing over what to wear on the ship, especially for formal nights. I have just returned from a cruise to Alaska from Vancouver, and I am here to hopefully, give you the correct information...

Let me start by saying, this was my 1st cruise in 20 years. I am not a cruise vacationer. I usually travel independently with my family, and we did so all over Europe and Asia. We were deciding between a trip to Tokyo or Alaska, and my 21 year old son wanted to experience a cruise, and so that's what we did.

After reading these boards, I thought we needed day clothes and evening clothes. Boy, was I ever wrong, and so grossly over packed. Ladies, you do not need to beg the men in your life to wear a sports jacket, or a suit or a tie, if they don't want to. It is simply not necessary. Formal nights are just photo opts, and ways for the ship to make more money. The restaurants on the Coral Princess, at least, do nothing different on these nights in the restaurants, so why go overboard (hah!)? The women and men who were dressed to the nines looked ridiculous, in my opinion. It was as though they were all dressed up with the same place to go. Business casual is absolutely appropriate, or whatever else you would like to wear to take a picture or 2 or 3 or 1 dozen! On the other nights, wear whatever you wore in the day, except, I would not wear shorts and a graphic tee shirt. Jeans and any other type of shirt (even a clean plain tee shirt) is absolutely fine and appropriate.

We took 3 suitcases amongst the 3 of us. We could have easily taken just 2, if I had known that 2 sets of clothes per day is simply not needed!

[savannah2117]

agreed

[CRZe787]

Got it right..

I like NCL for their “don’t give a f style”= freestyle

 

I only do somewhat formal on CA night and thats it...

 

 

 

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[kctwinmommy]

I think it's great that you're sharing this. I know we did Carnival, which others seem to think is such sub-par quality. And often Princess is looked at to be so much more grand. But I think more people are dumping more of the formal look for this specific cruise. It was hard to pack so much for us as well. We were 3 people (couple & teenage boy) and we also spent 4 nights in Seattle before, with beautiful weather there! So we had so many clothes that we never used! I ended up buying an extra jacket on the ship though, it's come in handy here in Chicago though. But definitely needed a little more layers and less "nice" cloths. If you can pack it all and carry it, or not flying, then some can still do it I'm sure. But for us, I wish I had left a few things at home.

[wesp]

On Radiance of the Seas (August10) every night was casual night in the Cascades Dining Room. I upgraded to a sweater vest on Formal Nights. Leave the coats, jackets, dresses, and fancy shoes at home.

 

 

Wesley

[Coral]

I think if you had asked in advance, many of us would tell you that Alaska is "more casual" than over destinations.

[CRZe787]

I the other hand, it means somthing different to other generations

 

 

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[OCruisers]

Thanks for posting this! Great to hear and inform others about how people REALLY dress on the ship (y)

[jrmende63]

On Radiance of the Seas (August10) every night was casual night in the Cascades Dining Room. I upgraded to a sweater vest on Formal Nights. Leave the coats, jackets, dresses, and fancy shoes at home.

 

 

 

 

 

Wesley

 

 

 

This good to know Wesley.

 

 

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[rvorcruise]

Some people like to get dressed up on the ships - it's the only place that my wife and I ever do. Saying that the people who do look ridiculous is just..... well, let's leave it at being a ridiculous comment.

[Turtle05]

I think I'll take two of my cocktail length dresses and leave the long ones here. Outside of my husband's military balls and rare outings such as the theater, I never dress up. I own more dresses than I wear in a year, so it's nice to dress up on a cruise.

[bemis12]

Certainly someone in that post volunteered to make themselves look ridiculous.

[nukesubsailor]

Cruises are the place to really have fun and make memories. Cruises are expensive which makes it even more important that you enjoy yourself. If you enjoy dressing up then do so. If packing formal wear causes you stress then leave it at home and go with smart casual. For us, going with smart casual rather than formal adds to our happiness but we don't fault anyone else for going formal.

What we would fault are those who like to go formal and feel that everyone should be compelled to do the same. Nor should anyone feel that everyone should be compelled to not dress formally. Live and let live. Why stress out over something as trivial as how someone else dresses?