CruiseLink
Can the cruise line read your app chat? What eight lines say
No line we checked says it cannot, and none says its chat is end-to-end encrypted. We read the app terms and privacy notices of eight cruise lines on 6 Nov 2026. Royal Caribbean and Celebrity say they keep chat history for the voyage and purge it when the voyage ends. Carnival, Princess and Holland America say they collect a child’s chat messages once a parent switches chat on, and Princess says messages with the Front Desk are “logged and stored”. Disney says the Navigator app keeps chat messages on your phone. Costa says nothing about chat, and Norwegian’s privacy page would not load for us. The fair summary: the line’s chat is private from other guests, not from the line.
Why we checked
The lines’ chat pages tell you what it costs and who you can talk to. None of them tells you who else can see it, and families use these chats for everything from dinner plans to where a teenager is at midnight. We asked a search-grounded AI assistant on 6 Nov 2026 whether the messages are private and whether they are kept. It found the children’s-chat wording at Carnival and Princess, said it could find nothing chat-specific for Royal Caribbean or Disney, and did not find Royal Caribbean’s own retention clause at all. A web search turned up nothing that compares the lines. The answers are in each line’s legal pages, which is exactly where nobody reads.
This is not an exposé. A chat that runs on a company’s servers can, in principle, be read by that company; that is true of most messaging services, and a cruise line has safety reasons to keep the ability. The point is to know which kind of chat you are using before you send anything you would not want a third party to see.
Line by line
The middle column quotes the line itself, from its own app terms, privacy notice or App Store listing, all read on 6 Nov 2026. The date in brackets is the date the document gives for itself. Where a source is not the line, we say so.
| Line | What the line’s own documents say about chat messages | What that means |
|---|---|---|
| Royal Caribbean | Digital Terms of Use (last updated March 2023), section 6, Guest to Guest Chat: “We will retain G2G Chat history only for the duration of your voyage and we will purge all chat history once your voyage ends.” It adds that its Privacy Policy and laws including the US Stored Communications Act and CLOUD Act “may apply with regard to the privacy of the content”, and that by sending content you give Royal Caribbean a worldwide licence to host, store and reproduce it. The Privacy Policy itself (effective 25 Feb 2025) does not mention chat. | Kept for the cruise, deleted after it. The clearest retention answer of the eight. The licence wording is standard for app terms and lets the line run the service; it does not say anyone reads your messages, and it does not say nobody can. These terms also say chat is limited to your reservation or stateroom, which is older than Royal Caribbean’s current FAQ letting you invite other people. |
| Celebrity | Digital Terms of Use (last updated 3 March 2023): the same Guest to Guest Chat section as Royal Caribbean, word for word, including “we will purge all chat history once your voyage ends”. | Kept for the cruise, deleted after it. Celebrity is part of the Royal Caribbean group and uses the same terms. |
| Carnival (HUB) | Privacy Notice (last updated 14 Jul 2025): “If a parent or guardian allows the Child to use chat and purchase features, we collect the Child’s chat messages, chat usage data, and purchase records.” Mobile App Terms (effective 25 May 2018): “You and the contact with whom You communicate will be able to view past Chats.” In the section on content you upload, Carnival “may, but has no obligation to, remove, edit, block, and/or monitor Content”. | Children’s chat is collected; adults’ is not addressed. No retention period for chat is given. The “monitor” clause sits in the section about photos and posts, and the terms do not say whether it covers chat. |
| Princess | App terms (effective 8 Sep 2021), under messages with the Front Desk: “All messages will be logged and stored for quality control and appropriate communication is being held between crew members and guests.” Shipmate chat between guests is described separately, with no such note. Privacy Notice (last updated “September 15th”, no year given): once a parent allows chat, “we collect the Child’s chat messages”. | Crew messages are logged; children’s chat is collected. Read the Front Desk line carefully: it is about messaging the crew, not your family. Princess says nothing either way about adults’ shipmate chat. |
| Holland America (Navigator) | Privacy Notice (last updated 30 Oct 2026): the same children’s wording as Carnival and Princess, “we collect the Child’s chat messages” once a parent allows chat. | Children’s chat is collected; adults’ is not addressed. Holland America, Carnival and Princess are all Carnival Corporation lines and share this text. |
| Disney (Navigator) | App Store listing (UK store, read through Apple’s public lookup): “This app saves data locally to your device, including chat messages and embarkation information”. Disney’s Children’s Online Privacy Policy (updated 22 Apr 2026) does not mention chat. A 2014 Disney addendum on Navigator chat, now available only as a copy on the fan site Disney Cruise Line Blog, encourages parents to “monitor and supervise children’s Onboard Chat conversations”. | Stored on your phone; Disney’s side not described. Keeping messages on the device says where your copy lives, not whether Disney’s systems keep one too. |
| Costa | Privacy Policy (last updated October 2026): describes the Costa App and the MyCosta portal, but does not mention chat. Its App Store listing promotes messages from “your travel companions”. | Not addressed. |
| Norwegian | Its privacy page did not load for us on 6 Nov 2026. Separately, its FAQ now points guests at wifi minutes rather than an in-app chat, as we found on 5 Nov. | Unknown. We will add it when we can read it. |
MSC and Virgin Voyages are left out: neither line’s App Store listing describes guest-to-guest chat. “Not addressed” means exactly that. A privacy notice saying nothing about chat does not mean the line keeps nothing, and a line can change its terms at any time.
Three things the eight lines have in common
- Nobody says end-to-end encrypted. Not in a privacy notice, not in app terms, not in a store listing. A line whose chat was built that way would have every reason to say so.
- Children’s chat is the one place lines are explicit. Carnival, Princess and Holland America all say they collect a child’s chat messages after a parent consents. If you are deciding whether to switch chat on for a younger child, each line’s age rules are worth reading alongside this.
- Only Royal Caribbean and Celebrity give a retention period. Everyone else relies on a general “as long as necessary” clause. Princess’s, for example, says it keeps personal information only as long as needed for the purpose, unless the law requires longer.
What to do with this
- Use the line’s chat for logistics — where to meet, when dinner is, who is at the pool. That is what it is for, and on most lines it is free or cheap. The cost comparison has the details.
- Save anything you want to keep before you disembark. On Royal Caribbean and Celebrity the line says the history is purged when the voyage ends; on the others, assume you cannot get it back.
- Do not send card numbers, passport details or anything you would not put on a postcard through any chat you do not control.
- Talk to children about it. Disney’s own 2014 advice still stands: decide together who they can chat with and what they should not share.
Where CruiseLink fits, and where it does not
CruiseLink was built the other way round. Messages are encrypted on your phone with a key that only your group’s phones hold, and decrypted only on theirs. By its own privacy policy (updated 19 Oct 2026): other passengers’ phones that help carry your messages see a short group tag and the size of each sealed message, not the contents, and delete what they carry after 24 hours; when a phone has internet, CruiseLink’s relay holds sealed messages it cannot read, for 14 days. Diagnostics, if you choose to send them, never include message text or names. It is free on the App Store and Google Play, with no accounts and no phone numbers.
That is not the same as private from everyone. Anyone in your group can read what you send them, and can screenshot it. Messages are kept on the phones in your group, so anyone who can unlock one of those phones can read them. And the usual limits apply in full: everyone has to install it and join the group before you sail; it reaches your own group, not the whole ship; and it is not instant across a large vessel, because messages pass between your group’s phones over Bluetooth and the ship’s local wifi, and wait when nobody from your group is in between. There is no push-to-talk voice; it is text. It needs an iPhone 11 or later, or Android 9 or later; on an older phone the line’s app may be the only option.
So the honest advice: for everyday logistics, the line’s own chat is fine and needs no setup. If it matters to you that the line does not hold your family’s messages, set CruiseLink up before you go — it takes about fifteen minutes.
Not affiliated with any cruise line. Every line’s wording above was read on 6 Nov 2026 from its own app terms, privacy notice or UK App Store listing; the date in brackets is the date each document gives itself. The 2014 Disney addendum is quoted from a copy hosted by Disney Cruise Line Blog, not by Disney. This page describes what the lines say, not what their systems do; we have no way to test the latter.
Get CruiseLink
Free, no account, nothing to set up beyond your group. On iPhone and Android, and the two work together.
