What you need to know about cruising . . .

What can I wear to dinner? Dinner falls into 3 categories: Formal, Informal (also called semi-formal) and casual. Since there are many types of outfits women can wear, we won't comment on this - just dress to compliment the guys.

Breakfast & Lunch: no special dress code, even in the dining room. Shorts and tasteful t-shirts are acceptable. No swim suits or cover-ups.

Dinner: no shorts (although I have seen this on casual nights)

Casual: slacks (nice jeans) and sport shirt
Informal: suit or sports coat with tie; some ships don't mention a tie (i.e. Holland America)
Formal: dark suit or tuxedo. I see many men in nice sports outfit.

Some newer ships (i.e. Sun Princess) now have alternative dining facilities where you can dress almost any way you want to.

On a seven night cruise they will normally have two formal nights and one or two informal nights. 3 and 4 night cruises have one formal night.

If you would really like to go informal, look into one of the "sailing ships" (Windstar Cruises; Windjammer) or one of the smaller ships (Clipper, etc).