Dinner Dress -Viva Italia

[LParente]

We are considering booking Viva Italia for our first European trip. What are the restaurants like that are chosen for the group dining? Are any more formal? I went a little overboard buying dresses for a cruise and need an excuse to dress up! :)

[redzinner]

We are considering booking Viva Italia for our first European trip. What are the restaurants like that are chosen for the group dining? Are any more formal? I went a little overboard buying dresses for a cruise and need an excuse to dress up! :)

The restaurants from the 2008 Viva Italia were not 'dressy' venues. Out of necessity to hold a large group of people at once they were more family type restaurants. On your nights 'off' the tour dining you could definitely find more dressy (and expensive) dining venues in Rome and Venice.

Edit: I would like to add, we all did 'clean-up' and dress for dinner, no matter where we dined. Quite a few of the women wore skirts or dresses for dinner, just not fancy or dressy, more casual summer wear.

[whayes]

We only brought carry-on for our luggage. All of our stuff was less than 20 pounds, so we were not able to bring a lot of clothes. We also do not like to dress up much. We ended up wearing shorts to all meals. We had dressier shorts for the "nicer" meals provided by ABD. We did not frequent fancy restaurants on our own. Many of the other adventurers dressed up for the dinner on the last night. That is the only time I can remember anyone wearing anything other than casual wear.

[grumpy-1]

I'm, curious, why did you only bring a carry-on for a 10 day trip? you don't ever see your luggage, except for leaving it by your door to be taken to your next room.

[glassslipper2004]

I think you would be just fine bringing cruise/summer dresses to wear to dinners. Everyone "cleaned up" for dinner, as one poster mentioned, and I felt like I didn't bring enough dressy clothes. Not that wearing less dressy clothes was a problem, but it would have been more fun to change into something pretty at night. The restaurants, while "family style" in some respects, were also quite nice - tablecloths, three course meals, wine, etc. Many of the women in my group not only wore nice things at dinner, but pretty summer dresses during the day. So - bring whatever makes you happy! And remember that summer trips can be very hot, so you'll be glad for a change of clothes after touring all day.

[whayes]

I'm, curious, why did you only bring a carry-on for a 10 day trip? you don't ever see your luggage, except for leaving it by your door to be taken to your next room.

We travelled on our own for a week after that in England and Scotland. We did not want to be burdened with a lot of luggage. We do not have good luck with airlines, so we always carry-on. Our flights in Europe required our carry-on to be less than 20 lbs.

It worked out really well and many of our fellow travellers said that they wished that they had packed lighter. They did not know what to do with all of the stuff they brought.