Invited by a Travel Agent
Some travel agents set Cruise Buddy up for their customers as part of the booking. If yours did, they will have sent you a link with an invitation code on the end, like this:
https://cruise-buddy.app/join/7VQP-4MJKClaiming it adds your cruise to your Cruise Buddy account with Cruise Buddy Plus included for that trip.
📷 Screenshot needed: A cruise is waiting for you (
/images/account/claim.png)
The email
Most agents send the link by email. It comes from Cruise Buddy rather than from your agent's own address, which catches people out, so it is worth knowing what to look for:
| From | Cruise Buddy, at [email protected] |
| Subject | Your cruise is ready in Cruise Buddy |
| Says | That your agent has set Cruise Buddy up for your cruise, the ship and sailing date, and an Add my cruise button |
If you reply to it, your reply goes to your travel agent, not to us. That is deliberate: questions about your booking are theirs to answer, and we have no visibility of it.
Can't find it?
Check your spam or promotions folder, and search for cruise-buddy.app. If it is genuinely not there, ask your agent — they can see whether it was sent, and they can always read the code to you over the phone instead.
Some agents send the link another way entirely — by text, on WhatsApp, or written down. It works exactly the same whichever way it reaches you.
Claiming your cruise
Everything happens in Cruise Buddy on the web, on any phone, tablet or computer. The invitation page is:
https://app.cruise-buddy.app/join/YOUR-CODE- Open the invitation. Tap the link, or type the address above with your code on the end.
- Check the details. You'll see who arranged it, the ship and the sailing date, so you can be sure it is your booking.
- Sign in. If you're not signed in yet, sign in or create an account — it takes a minute and needs only your email address. Then open the invitation link again.
- Tap "Add this cruise." You'll see "Invitation claimed." The cruise arrives on your account at the next sync, on every device you use.
If you only have the code
Codes look like 7VQP-4MJK, and an agent reading one out over the phone is normal. Type it onto the end of app.cruise-buddy.app/join/ in your browser.
Codes are built to survive being read aloud. They are not case sensitive, the hyphen is optional, and the alphabet deliberately leaves out the characters people confuse: there is no letter O, I or L in a Cruise Buddy code, so a character that looks like a zero is a zero and one that looks like a one is a one. If you type them anyway, Cruise Buddy works out what you meant.
Everyone on the booking can use the same link
The invitation belongs to the booking, not to one person. Your partner, family or friends on the same booking can each open the same link and claim it with their own Cruise Buddy account. Up to four people can do so.
Your agent is charged once for the booking however many of you claim it.
What you get
- The cruise, with the ship, cruise line and dates already entered.
- Cruise Buddy Plus for that cruise, so the budget, spending, journal, documents, travel, weather, deck plans and cost planners all work on it — and your Places map unlocks too.
Claiming never counts against the two-cruise limit. Your agent has paid for the cruise, so it's always added.
What this does not include
Agent-funded Plus covers the cruise it was granted for, not your whole account. Other cruises you add yourself stay on the free tier, the two-cruise limit still applies to them, and passport documents in People belong to a person rather than to a cruise so they stay locked. If you want Plus everywhere, buy it and it covers everything.
Your data stays yours
Nothing you put into Cruise Buddy goes back to the travel agent. Not your journal, not your spending, not your packing list, not your documents, not even whether you opened the app. Your cruises are encrypted so that even we can't read them.
The information flows one way only: they provision the cruise, and that is the end of it. The invitation email carries no booking reference and none of your personal details either, because email is not a secure channel and the link is all you need.
If the link does not work
| Message | What to do |
|---|---|
| This invitation is unavailable or has expired. | Check the code with your travel agent — it's easy to mistype by hand, and tapping the link avoids that. Invitations also expire, and your agent can withdraw one. Ask them to send a new one. |
| Could not claim this invitation. | The invitation may already have been claimed by everyone on the booking, or the booking may have changed. Contact your travel agent. If you're offline, reconnect and try again. |
If the link offers to open a Cruise Buddy app rather than showing your cruise, go to app.cruise-buddy.app/join/ followed by your code instead.
Anything else, or if your agent says the invitation should be fine, email us.
When the cruise is over
Agent-funded Plus is tied to that cruise, so it ends with it. Everything you wrote stays on your account and stays readable — your journal, your spending record, your travel bookings, your documents. What stops is adding new entries to those sections.
See how Plus behaves when you do not have it for exactly what that looks like.