Carnival Corporation, the world’s leading cruise operator spanning over 100 vessels across 10 brands, partnered with TribalScale to completely modernize the onboard experience. The result? A powerful mobile platform—built to work offline—that enhances guest engagement, boosts pre-cruise bookings, and cuts wait times for services.
Impact Delivered
Challenge
Carnival needed to elevate their digital offerings in the rapidly evolving cruise and hospitality space. Specifically, they wanted to:
Rebuild the onboard chat system to work without internet connectivity
Enable passengers to book premium experiences before cruise departure
Support orders of food and beverages delivered directly to guests
Redesign scheduling tools for seamless itinerary planning
Implement a reservation system to lower service congestion and wait times
Solution
Leveraging prior collaborations and aligned agile practices, TribalScale embedded deeply with Carnival’s teams—both in Miami and Toronto. We created a ship-network emulation environment to test real-world constraints, conducted iterative user testing with actual cruisers, and built a middleware-agnostic platform that adapts per ship. We also coached Carnival’s team in Agile and XP methodologies, empowering them to sustain and expand the toolset themselves
Offline-First Chat: Rebuilt the communication system to function without internet, enabling reliable guest-to-guest messaging.
Pre-Cruise Booking: Integrated premium activity reservations ahead of boarding.
On-Demand Orders: Let passengers order food and drinks by location, from anywhere on the ship.
Smart Scheduling & Reservations: Redesigned itinerary planning and introduced a custom reservation engine to reduce wait times.
Adaptable Build Architecture: Created modular middleware so code can be repurposed across vessels and future features can be integrated quickly
Tools and Technologies Used:
Kotlin
Swift
Objective C
RX Java
Fastlane
Concourse
Bitrise
Microsoft .NET
Git
Outcome
The Carnival HUB App evolved from a minor digital component to a cornerstone of the cruise experience. Guests now cruise with enhanced autonomy and awareness—booking, chatting, and navigating effortlessly. The platform also meets ADA accessibility, ensuring inclusivity across all abilities. TribalScale has completed over ten engagements with Carnival—deepening our role as their trusted innovation partner
Why It Matters
This collaboration exemplifies how hospitality brands can redefine guest experience through connected, offline-capable mobile innovation. By combining immersive user testing, adaptive architecture, and agile training, Carnival is now delivering more seamless, engaging, and accessible vacation journeys—without compromising the blissful “disconnect” of cruising.