What To Wear On A Cunard Cruise

What to pack for a Cunard cruise.

Cunard’s what to pack section on its website clearly states “that shorts and T-shirts are perfectly acceptable to wear during the day”.

Which is great especially if you’re going on a lovely warm cruise.

However, the use of perfectly acceptable is one of the reasons why Cunard can be seen as stuffy and difficult to dress for cruise line.

Imagine if you said to an elderly relative, is it okay if I wear shorts and T-shirt to the family barbecue and they replied that is perfectly acceptable. You might get the feeling your elderly relative really wanted you to dress up/put on a jacket.

However, Cunard love shorts and T-shirts during the day. Keeping it casual on Cunard. Now, we’re not recommending you wear the old Misshapen shorts and T-shirts you like to potter about in the garden in, but a crisp and cute outfit you’d wear to a pub garden lunch or a farmers market, is perfect for on board.

By the pool, you’ll see lots of people in modern swimwear, not Victorian pantaloon sets, but like the majority of other cruise lines, you will need to put clothes on in order to go inside and grab lunch or visit another venue.

Simply put, it's cruise casual during the day, with guests of all ages, looking like they are on vacation and not extras in a ship related period drama, starring Kate Winslet.

What we’ve seen people wearing during the day As well as lots of culottes, we’ve seen younger cruisers, go the full White Lotus in floaty caftans and unbuttoned linen white shirts, but whatever the age range, everyone looks to be on a cruise holiday.

That being said, Cunard don’t really like to see shorts after 6 pm.

As a result, you’ll be expected to change from your casual clothes into something smarter for the evening

That does not mean you’ll need to get fully glammed up every night, but they are very particular which bars and restaurants you can visit on gala nights, and then do expect Men to wear collared shirts or polo shirts in the restaurants on non-gala nights, but no need to wear a jacket or tie if you don’t want to (and most don’t!)

Dressed To Impress

Of course Cunard will let you know which themed gala evenings will be on your cruise and even though you might not like the thought of it, we’ve found it fun to dress up like you’re in a James Bond movie while enjoying a fancy lobster dinner and sipping on martinis.

Men can switch up their dinner suit by wearing a snazzy dickie bowl or tie. Mark has a black and white polkadot dickie bow for black-and-white night. For ladies, you may want to consider taking a pair of gold or silver evening shoes together with a matching handbag, that way you’ll be doing what the professional dancers do by taking a set of shoes which go with every evening outfit. We find dressing for a Cunard cruise is very similar to dressing for your local golf or country club. If it’s something that you’d be happy to wear for lunch or a snazzy outfit that you’d wear to an black tie dinner, then it’s probably good for Cunard however, we hope our pictures help…and yes Mark wore dark indigo jeans matched with a collared shirt after 6pm. Thank you for reading and have a lovely day!