Why a cruise call is a different job
On a normal day, you coordinate services spread across the week. On a port call, everything is squeezed into three or four hours: several coaches, dozens of guides, different languages, excursions leaving the port almost at the same time and needing to be back before all-aboard time.
On top of that, information arrives in waves. The cruise line or tour operator gives you a first forecast, then adjusts the PAX per excursion, sometimes the day before, and a language changes at the last minute. If every change means rewriting a spreadsheet and resending messages, on the morning of the call you are still putting out fires.
One service per coach, all on the same call
In Partners, each coach or group is a request with the tour operator's reference, date, PAX, language, tour type, meeting time and point (the pier or terminal), and end time and place. To avoid creating them one by one, you have bulk requests and Excel import: you load the whole call in one go.
With global search and list filters, you see only that day's services, with their guides and status. Anything still without a guide is obvious straight away, without reading line by line.
Many guides, the same morning, no overlaps
When you assign, Partners suggests guides from your team by language, availability and history, and flags who already has a service that day. On a port call, that avoids the typical mistake: putting the same guide on two coaches leaving at the same time. Each guide gets an email and accepts or declines from their area.
If a coach needs two guides, or a guide and an interpreter, you assign them in the same record, along with audio guides and transport. Until everyone has confirmed, the service stays Partially accepted. We explain it step by step on the page about tour guide assignment.
Last-minute changes without a flurry of messages
The cruise line increases the PAX on an excursion or moves the departure time because the ship is running late. You change it in the request, which moves to Modified, and the guides involved get an email. Questions are handled in that service's chat, not in a group with every guide on the call.
The next day, you know exactly what was done: each service moves to Completed with its guides, and the guides invoice their services with VAT shown separately. To see how an inbound agency runs the whole year, not just port calls, see our DMC software.
After the call: data for the next one
When the ship sails, Partners keeps the full history of the call: which excursions ran, with how many PAX, in which languages and with which guides. The analytics per guide show you how many services each one ran and for how many people, and the countries of origin map tells you where the groups came from.
With that data, you plan the next cruise season better: you know which languages your team is short of, which guides can take on more and which ones to keep for the big calls. And if a tour operator asks you months later about a specific service, you find it with global search by its reference.
Get started before next season
During the 30-day trial, we import your services and your team of guides, and we set up the first port call in Partners with you. Up to 5 guides it is free; if your team is bigger, the first 25 agencies get the founder price of €49 a month (excl. VAT) for the Pro plan, fixed for as long as they keep their subscription.
If you run everything on spreadsheets today, take a look at Partners vs Excel to see what actually changes.
Updated on October 20, 2026
