Cruise Buddy

Getting Started ​

Cruise Buddy is built around a simple idea: every cruise has lots of moving parts, and you shouldn't have to dig through emails, screenshots and notes apps to find them. Once you add a cruise, everything that belongs to that trip — itinerary, excursions, packing list, payments, documents, notes — lives in one place.

Cruise Buddy is a web app. Open app.cruise-buddy.app in the browser on your phone, tablet or computer — there is nothing to download from an app store.

This section gets you up and running:

Creating your account ​

You need an account to use Cruise Buddy, because that is how your cruises reach every device you use. There is no password.

  1. Open app.cruise-buddy.app and choose Create account.
  2. Enter your name and email address and tap Email me a registration link.
  3. Open the email and tap the link. It works once and expires after 15 minutes.

Next time, choose Sign in instead and Cruise Buddy emails you a new sign-in link. See Your Cruise Buddy account for more.

Turning on sync and saving your recovery code ​

The first time you sign in, Cruise Buddy asks you to turn on sync. Your cruises are encrypted in your browser before they are sent, with a key that never leaves your devices. We store them, but we cannot read them.

Tap Create my recovery code. Cruise Buddy shows a code once, and only once.

Save your recovery code

Write the code down or save it in your password manager, then tick I have saved my recovery code. It is how you unlock your cruises on a new phone, a new computer, or a browser that has been cleared. We do not keep a copy and cannot recover your cruises without it.

When you sign in on another device, Cruise Buddy asks for the recovery code (or a passphrase, if you add one). See Encrypted Sync & Devices.

How Cruise Buddy is organised ​

The main navigation sits at the bottom of the screen on a phone, and along the top on a larger screen:

  • Home — your dashboard. Every cruise you've added, grouped by status, with a daily cruise tip.
  • Places — a world map of every port you've called at on a finished cruise.
  • People — passport, insurance, medical and contact details for everyone you travel with.
  • Search — search cruises, people, documents and ports across your whole account. Press / or Ctrl/⌘ + K on a keyboard.
  • Account — your name, the sync status, Profile and settings, and Sign out. A coloured dot on the account icon shows whether everything has synced.

📷 Screenshot needed: Main navigation (/images/getting-started/navigation.png)

What you can track per cruise ​

Each cruise has its own detail screen, with a section for each kind of information:

  • Overview — countdown, next stop, travel at a glance, booking and cabin details, balance and party.
  • Itinerary — port and sea days with times, excursions, forecasts and a route map.
  • People — who is travelling on this cruise, and which of their documents are for this trip.
  • Packing — a packing list by category and bag.
  • To-do — pre-cruise jobs, and the cruise's reminders.
  • Money — what the cruise costs, what you have paid, and what you spend on board.
  • Travel — flights, hotels, parking, car hire and anything else.
  • Journal — diary entries with photos, mood, location and the people you were with.
  • Documents — tickets, confirmations and other files for the cruise.
  • Share — encrypted links for a travel partner or someone following from home.
  • Notes — free-text notes.
  • Planner — estimates for Wi-Fi, drinks packages and gratuities.
  • Decks — the ship's deck plans.

Open any port or sea day from the Itinerary section to see that day's excursions, conditions, map, documents, reminders and notes.

Works offline ​

Cruise Buddy keeps a copy of your cruises in your browser, so it keeps working at sea with no signal. Changes you make offline are queued and sent the next time you connect — a banner tells you when you're offline and how many changes are waiting.

Everything you add is saved on your device straight away, but it is not safely stored until it has synced. If you're about to clear your browser or hand the device on, check the sync status first.

Free and Plus ​

Cruise Buddy is free to use. The free tier plans the cruise — itinerary, packing, to-do lists, notes, reminders, the people you are travelling with, ship details and tips — and holds two upcoming cruises at a time.

Cruise Buddy Plus is a one-off purchase that adds your money, your documents, your travel bookings and your memories: balance and onboard spend, the journal and its photos, documents, flights, hotels and parking, weather and sea conditions, deck plans, the cost planners and your map of places visited. It also lifts the two-cruise limit.