I have heard and seen some posts saying that you can eat at La Veranda on formal nights without being formal. We have a cruise booked for June and DO NOT want to pack so heavily and wonder if we can indeed eat there dressed elegantly, but without a jacket?

Also we would like to know if anyone knows FOR SURE if there is any cocktail lounge we can go to on the same nights, but dressed ELEGANTLY, but without a jacket for the gentleman or a gown/cocktail dress?

We just had a horrible travel experience and huge overweight charges on a small European leg and if we can't get this worked out, we may have to go to another cruise line...we just don't want to eat in our cabin.

Thanks for any help anyone can give me.

Carol -

My solution is to take an all black outfit - pants, shell and lace blouse in Chico's Travel wear or Coldwater Creek. Add some sparkles - a scarf, jewelery and you're good to go.

My husband always takes a sport coat and I bought him a black one in wool that folds and doesn't wrinkle. Black slacks and a silk t-shirt and he's good too. He can wear the jacket on a plane with jeans too.

This is my understanding, yes you can eat at La Veranda on formal nights without being formal. But, after 6 pm, the rest of the ship is formal, including the lounges. So you need to sneek up to La Veranda in your informal/elegant casual wear and then back to your cabin after dinner, silly but true. This was my recent experience on Mariner.

They are working on the dress code and there will be some changes by 2010. With the polls that were taken my guess is mostly elegant casual on shorter cruises probably 14 days or less and some formal nights on longer cruises. Probably all be announced with the 2011 itineraries.

So do not stress now about 2010 until the details are released. My guess is the entire European season will all be elegantly casual.

I was under the impression that formal dress was only in the 3 restaurants after 6 pm and did not pertain to the lounges or casino. On the Mariner Alaskan cruise in Sept. '09, we did not have any formal nights but saw every kind of dress, esp. Prime 7, where we dined the first evening. Men were wearing turtleneck sweaters and, heaven forbid, "golf shirts". I was exhausted after a long airline trip and probably many others were as well but they were not asked to leave and it never bothers me what people choose to wear. Some folks in the lounges were wearing jeans and they were nicely dressed.... just my observation..

Thanks all of you for your input, although the lounges are a bit cloudy. We will have a suite just outside the Observation Lounge on 11, so it seems so silly to SNEAK. Nigaire--I so hope you are right. It is soooo way over the top to have to sneak when you pay so very, very much to ENJOY. I hope they change things for 2010...just a LITTLE. We will see. For now I won't cancel and I will keep my fingers crossed. We like LaVeranda as Oliver makes salt-free stuff for me, so that is not all bad, but not being able to go out for a cocktail before dinner is a little daunting.

Thanks EVERYONE for the input.

I don't think you have to sneak, really. Just don't try to get into a lounge in CCC on informal night, etc. I believe Alaska is just more casual because of the destination.