There are often opportunities to visit the bridge. Not sure about the engine room, but perhaps your father can ingratiate himself with an engineer during the bridge visit!

Just remember that La Verandah is your only choice for that formal night (of course you can have room service if you prefer.) I suspect that you could sneak into a lounge later in the evening as long as you're wearing a jacket and tie, but can't vouch for that.

This formal night thing is such a pain, isn't it? We deal with it by David having a single dark blue suit, the jacket of which doubles as a blazer with grey pants for informal nights. So he only brings the one jacket and 2 pants, and he's set for those pesky dress-ups.