No not everyone wears tuxs and formal gowns. You will see a little bit of everything. Some women will wear nice cocktail length dresses and men will also wear suits. If you go to cruisereviews.com under Premium cruise lines, then select Century, then go to Tog Ogg's review of the Century for May 2005. He starts the review out with a picture of our group on formal night.
As Cruise fanatic mentioned, there is a tremendous diversity of clothes, even on formal night. Although I wore a tux on the Constellation, the two other gentlemen travelling in my party wore suit jackets, and didn't look out of place in the least. Don't worry if you don't want to be too "formal"
One couple at another table did come in wearing a flannel shirt and jeans on formal night... they didn't turn them away at the door, but they did get a lot of stares... THAT level of casual was probably unusual. Not that they seemed to mind!! LOL
Thanks a lot guys for the advice. This will be our 8th cruise, but the first on a Celebrity Ship. We are burnt out on Carnival. It just seems their standers have been lowered. As far as people wearing flannel shirt and jeans to a formal night, they should of been turned away. Formal night is a night to look nice. It got that way on the Carnival ships you could show up with just about anything on. Thanks again. Have a nice day.
It is not just Carnival. I have seen on many cruise lines the people that just won't dress up. You will find the short cruises tend to have less people dressing up. But even on the seven night and longer cruises there are always some. Rarely will a head waiter say anything because they are afraid of offending someone. They don't want confrontation, so they turn the other way. If more of the people started complaining that "they were offended by those not following the rules", then maybe we'd see something done about the rule breakers.