P&O - what to expect?

[Guest]

Sorry was gonna comment as well but doing dinner got in the way.
6 years ago I had dresses for the formal evenings and black trousers and nice top for the others. Wear heels and I never usually wear those lol.

Looking at other cruise lines p and o are more stuffy it seems with the formal thing.
We ate in the main rooms once and the rest was buffet but still dressed up otherwise I would have looked out of place.

Will be going back to p&o on two ships and not looking forward to buying dresses as I am big so nothing looks very good on me but I have to buy some so I can fit in.

Have looked at the Royal Caribbean ships and they looks loads better. Too expensive for me though

[BevS97]

We did p and o last summer. We did one formal night we’re we got very dressed up.
A couple of nights in the main dining room where we wore smart tops / trousers.
Then towards the end of week we gravitated to the buffet for dinner and didn’t dress up at all. Even one night which was formal night there were plenty of informal people in the buffet.

[katiec68]

We've done one with P&O and are off again in July on Britannia to the Baltics.

On formal nights you can be as formal as you want - some wear ballgowns etc!
Or on formal nights if you dont want to dress you can go to the buffet without any dress restrictions.
SOME of the bars require you to stick to formal nights attire on formal nights but there is aways somewhere that you dont have to dress up.

Other than that its kinda go as you please.

You will find that the most people (well on the cruises I have done anyway (p&o/Princess/Celebrity) will at least dress smartly to eat in the MDR, but there are others that will go in shorts and t-shirts. (this doesnt include the americans who dont seem to dress up anytime )

Personally I LOVE the opportunity to dress up, and have even eaten in the buffet in my formal wear when we didnt like the menu

But I have also eaten in the buffet in my tracksuit in the evening.

There will be some that just do as they please but I think P&O are fairly good at enforcing the dress code in the bars on formal night - MDR probably not soo much.

[arielrocks]

We were on Britannia in July and had our 18 month old with us so never went to any restaurants other than the buffet! We didn’t pack any formal clothes and spent the week in jeans, T-shirt’s, polo shirts etc. This was fine for everywhere we went on board but I wouldn’t have been comfortable in any other restaurants dressed like this.

[stecee]

We went to the Fjords on the Azura a couple of years ago.
I used to wear chinos and either a polo or casual shirt on non formal nights. On formal nights most if not all people in the main dining room wore a suit of some description.
My wife used to wear a casual top and either jeans or pants on non formal nights and a cocktail dress on formal nights.
My wife loves the formal nights, me less so.
We are back with P&O this year, on the Oceana going to Croatia and Venice.

[Lisa123wm]

Thanks for all the replies, very helpful.
We aim to eat in the MDR most/every night as we like those kind of meals.
Good to be prepared 🙂

[katiec68]

Originally Posted by Lisa123wm

Thanks for all the replies, very helpful.
We aim to eat in the MDR most/every night as we like those kind of meals.
Good to be prepared 🙂

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They put the evenings menu up at lunchtime so you can see what you fancy.

Also on your daily horizon it will state what the theme of the night is for the buffet ie - seafood, italian etc

The seafood night was awesome and much better than the MDR xxx

[Lisa123wm]

Originally Posted by katiec68

They put the evenings menu up at lunchtime so you can see what you fancy.

Also on your daily horizon it will state what the theme of the night is for the buffet ie - seafood, italian etc

The seafood night was awesome and much better than the MDR xxx

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Thank you, that is really good to know. Hubby, me and daughter are all pescatarian, so seafood night sounds fab 😊