Hi Jiffy
I didn't mean to insult you by implying that YOU don't wash or change, just that one doesn't HAVE to do so.
On my first cruise I took lots of clothes and accessories, and ended up wearing well under half of them. The problem is that you don't know what the weather is going to be like in the Med, it can rain (so you need stout shoes, brolly etc if you're going ashore), the sun can be baking hot (so you need to take enough t-shirts for 2 changes per day), enough pairs of shorts etc. Then you need enough changes of slightly warmer clothes in case it's not hot enough for the t-shirts. OK, so it's not likely to be baking hot every day, etc, but on the other hand how can you be sure? You certainly can't plan each day's clothes in advance.
Plus there's the formal nights. If there's only one, you can take one outfit. But if there's more, you may not just want to take as many outfits to cover the number of days - e.g. if you felt underdressed for the first one, you'll need a posher one next time. Or if you felt overdressed the first time, vice versa.
My first cruise was on an Italian ship, Costa Tropicale, and as I knew the Italians dressed very stylishly I took plenty of designer stuff (bought at a huge discount, by the way!!!!) - I ended up feeling overdressed and didn't wear much of the designer stuff. Which is why I wrote such a lot months ago about my experiences of what other passengers wear (it's probably on the deleted thread, though). I'll repeat it here in case it was - people who have read it can skip to the next post!.
You don't need more than 2 pairs of shorts, or 3 at the most - some people wear the same ones all through, and even tell you that because the atmosphere is so informal and I think that's how it should be. After all, we're on holiday, not on the catwalk.
Shoes: be comfortable at all costs, take your oldest shoes - if you look around, you'll soon see that's what everybody else has done too. There's a lot of walking, both from A to B on the ship and in port.
Many people don't bother changing for dinner, so if you can't be bothered to then don't worry about feeling out of place. After some long and tiring excursions the last thing I want to do when I get back to the ship is worry about whether I'll have the energy to work out what to wear.
Of course, if you actually WANT to dress up all the time, you won't feel out of place either - you always get a few people who love dressing to impress, and some ships have more of them than others. Obviously, the more you pay for your cruise the more rich people will be on it, so they're likely to want to show everybody how rich they are by wearing clothes to match their bank balances. Not all QM2 passengers are like that, by the way, I've bumped into ones ashore who you wouldn't know weren't on my ship.
Fay
Magsy and alit.
