Royal Caribbean Changes Main Dining Room Dress Code

Guests on Royal Caribbean Cruise Line sailings will no longer be able to wear shorts or tank tops when they go to dine in main dining rooms, even during casual nights.

Royal Caribbean updated the dress policy on its website this week, in what seems like an attempt to clear up any confusion after its blog said it had added shorts to its dress code for casual nights last week.

The new rules are:

• For formal nights, the cruise line recommends “suits and ties, tuxedos, cocktail dresses or evening gowns.”
• For smart casual nights, “think of this as a step up from your typical dinner wear” and wear “collared shirts, dresses, skirts and blouses, or pantsuits.”
• For casual nights, Royal suggests “jeans, polos, sundresses and blouses” but asks guests to “keep swimwear to the Pool Deck.” Shorts and tanks will be accepted for breakfast and lunch, but not in the main dining room at dinner.

For comparison, Carnival Cruise Line and Norwegian Cruise Line both allow shorts to be worn during casual dress nights.

This is the second time in a month that the definition of “appropriate attire” became a travel-industry issue. At the end of March, two girls who were “pass riders” on free tickets as family of United employees, were denied boarding on a United Airlines flight from Denver to Minneapolis because they were wearing leggings.

United took said regular passengers are welcome to wear whatever they like but the dress code that forbids pass riders from wearing form-fitting lycra or spandex tops, pants or dresses, ripped or torn clothing, or offensive words or graphics, applies only to pass riders.