Dress for evening venues

[Jim Avery]

Lots of great travel wear out there that packs smaller, is lighter, doesn't wrinkle and has better pockets than denim jeans.  I'm on a road trip in Florida and wear jeans most days to poke around but are meeting Viking in San Juan PR on the 17th and am not even taking my jeans.  Just take up too much space and dry too slowly if washed/wet.

[Flgreg]

We came home yesterday after being on the Viking Sky for 10 days. Greek Odyssey.

 

Around about day 4 we noticed multiple people--men and women arriving in The Restaurant and lounges after 6pm dressed in all sorts or denim jeans and many of the men in shirts without collars. We had previously seen several of the people earlier in the cruise wearing clothes at night in accordance with Viking's recommendations so I don't think it was a matter of misdirected luggage.

 

None of the staff at the host/hostess stand seemed to say anything to them, just seated them promptly.

[tobique33040]

On 12/1/2022 at 8:06 AM, Jim Avery said:

Lots of great travel wear out there that packs smaller, is lighter, doesn't wrinkle and has better pockets than denim jeans.  I'm on a road trip in Florida and wear jeans most days to poke around but are meeting Viking in San Juan PR on the 17th and am not even taking my jeans.  Just take up too much space and dry too slowly if washed/wet.

Some people hate to follow rules, unfortunately. What’s the big deal to leave your jeans and t shirt at home? I agree that basic travel pants or khakis/ chinos work best. I bring one pair of dressy black pants and several tops and scarves. It’s nice to make dinner a special occasion. 

[oskidunker]

Just sent my blue blazer to the cleaners. Will be taking it. 

[Cienfuegos]

On Viking, at least, there's a noticeable difference in evening wear on Northern cruises versus tropical and Med cruises.  I've found Northern European cruises on many  lines to be noticeably more formal (men's blazers, ties, real shoes, etc) than Cuban, Spain and Portugal, etc trips.

 

My observation, yours may vary

[jc522]

Currently on Star for our first Viking cruise. I like to dress a bit more casual, never wear dress slacks, but I'm glad i brought a pair. The dress code as written is definitely followed in the restaurants. You still get some hat backwards, camo pants and hiking shoe passengers, but only a few. The average age on-board is OLD! The music in the public areas is targeted at that demo. Very boring and monotonous.

Edited December 17, 2022 by jc522

[Haqdeluxe]

16 minutes ago, jc522 said:

Currently on Star for our first Viking cruise. I like to dress a bit more casual, never wear dress slacks, but I'm glad i brought a pair. The dress code as written is definitely followed in the restaurants. You still get some hat backwards, camo pants and hiking shoe passengers, but only a few. The average age on-board is OLD! The music in the public areas is targeted at that demo. Very boring and monotonous.

"The average age on-board is OLD! The music in the public areas is targeted at that demo. Very boring and monotonous." Well there is another well-kept Viking secret totally blown! 🙃 

[jc522]

At 70 yo, I didn't expect to be about the youngest onboard.

[CCWineLover]

10 minutes ago, jc522 said:

At 70 yo, I didn't expect to be about the youngest onboard.

In my experience it totally depends on the Viking Itinerary.

We've been on a cruise out of Fort Lauderdale and it was indeed a much higher median age than any of the other 10 Viking cruises we've had.  I had heard that cruises into/out of Florida tend to attract an older crowd with Viking, which is understandably.   We were on the highly active Into the Midnight Sun cruise last summer in Norway - much younger and more active crowd!  As well as the Rome to Barcelona Mediterranean cruise.

 

That being said, we are boarding the Star in a couple days for Panama Canal for the holidays, so our expectations are set low 🙂

 

[Squawkman]

I agree with CC. We were on the Mediterranean Odyssey cruise this fall and the crowd was the youngest I ever remember seeing on Viking - ocean or river. In our early 70s, we were definitely several years above the median age.

[Moonlion]

3 hours ago, CCWineLover said:

In my experience it totally depends on the Viking Itinerary.

Agree, on our Northern Lights cruise last January, there was a wide age range on board with most appearing to be in their 50s to early 70s, along with some relative "youngsters" - could have been the cold weather and fairly demanding excursions on this cruise.  On our Viking river cruises, the age demographic overall seemed older but there were still a number of younger passengers on board.  

[MikeyB]

4 hours ago, jc522 said:

Currently on Star for our first Viking cruise. I like to dress a bit more casual, never wear dress slacks, but I'm glad i brought a pair. The dress code as written is definitely followed in the restaurants. You still get some hat backwards, camo pants and hiking shoe passengers, but only a few. The average age on-board is OLD! The music in the public areas is targeted at that demo. Very boring and monotonous.

Glad you are enjoying your cruise!

Has any of the bar staff treated you well?

[Azulann]

On 12/1/2022 at 7:06 AM, Jim Avery said:

Lots of great travel wear out there that packs smaller, is lighter, doesn't wrinkle and has better pockets than denim jeans.  I'm on a road trip in Florida and wear jeans most days to poke around but are meeting Viking in San Juan PR on the 17th and am not even taking my jeans.  Just take up too much space and dry too slowly if washed/wet.

Off topic, but so  good to see you and your wife  will be   back on a Viking Cruise later this month. I hope you will stop by  forum and give us a report. 

Edited December 17, 2022 by Azulann

[jc522]

2 hours ago, MikeyB said:

Glad you are enjoying your cruise!

Has any of the bar staff treated you well?

Enjoying our cruise experience very much!

[MikeyB]

Happy to hear this.

Boarding in a couple of days so I asked about the bar staff.

[M.Travels]

On 11/30/2022 at 9:19 AM, flare3192 said:

what about leggings for women with a tunic top -- is this allowed?

Absolutely allowed … not seeing it quite as much on our current warm-weather cruise, but when we did a (very cold) Alaskan cruise this was the standard for over half the women on board at night. Lots of tunics, often with cardigans on top. The ship was warm but we were all in cold-weather mode and as some folks have noted we liked to go outside if there was a whale or something.

[M.Travels]

On 12/17/2022 at 12:19 PM, jc522 said:

Currently on Star for our first Viking cruise. I like to dress a bit more casual, never wear dress slacks, but I'm glad i brought a pair. The dress code as written is definitely followed in the restaurants. You still get some hat backwards, camo pants and hiking shoe passengers, but only a few. The average age on-board is OLD! The music in the public areas is targeted at that demo. Very boring and monotonous.

This made me laugh because my only other Viking was Alaska and the Sea right now is a MUCH younger crowd. In Alaska I was one of maybe, maybe 10 -12 (??) people under 50 on board. There were two people in their twenties, someone’s grandkids, and maybe four in their early thirties that were also traveling with older relatives. Then there were about three couples in their working years on vacation …. Everyone else was long past retirement age!

 

Compared to that experience this Sea voyage seems so young! Several younger couples, people under thirty, etc.