Set your group up before you sail
Do this at home, a week before you go, while everyone still has a normal connection. It takes about fifteen minutes for a family of five. One person starts the group and sends a link; everyone else opens the link. Trying to do it at the terminal, with no signal and the luggage going in, is how most groups fail at the first step.
Send this page to your party
Seriously — that is the useful thing you can do right now. The most common pattern we see is one person installing it, starting a group, and nobody else ever joining. The app cannot do anything on its own: it works by passing messages between phones, so a person who has not installed it simply is not reachable.
One person: start the group
- Install CruiseLink. It is free on the App Store.
- Open it and tap Organising the trip, then Start a group.
- Give it a name everyone will recognise, and put in the ship and dates if you have them.
- Tap Send an invite link and send it to everyone — WhatsApp, text, email, whatever your family actually reads.
Everyone else: join
- Install CruiseLink from the App Store.
- Open it and tap Joining someone.
- Open the invite link you were sent, or scan the other person's QR code if you are in the same room.
- Say yes to Bluetooth, Local Network and notifications when asked. All three matter.
Why those three permissions
No app should ask without explaining itself.
- Bluetooth is how your phone finds and talks to the other phones in your group when there is no network at all.
- Local Network is how it uses the ship's wifi to reach the others, where the ship allows guests to reach each other.
- Notifications are how you find out a message arrived while the phone was in your pocket. Without them you have to keep opening the app.
Test it before you go
Stand in different rooms at home with wifi switched off on both phones and send a message. It should arrive. Doing this at home, where you can still fix it, is worth the two minutes.
On the ship
- Put your phone in airplane mode, then switch Bluetooth back on. Airplane mode stops expensive maritime roaming; Bluetooth is what CruiseLink needs.
- Connect to the ship's wifi if you can, even without buying a package. It gives messages a second route — what that means on P&O.
- Leave the app closed. It does not need to be open, and it does not need the screen on.
- Agree a meeting point anyway. Any system can fail; a time and a bar cannot.
What to expect, honestly
Messages between people on the same deck, or a deck apart, usually arrive in seconds. Messages to someone at the far end of a large ship with nobody in between will wait until somebody moves. A phone that has been left in the cabin safe all afternoon has not received anything, and will catch up when it comes back out.
Everyone's phone shows when each person was last reached, so you can tell the difference between "they have not replied" and "their phone has not been seen since lunch".
iPhone today. Android is built and in testing, but not public yet — if your group is mixed, that is worth knowing before you plan around it.
Get CruiseLink
Free, no account, nothing to set up beyond your group. iPhone today; Android is built and in testing.
