Ship Mate, a startup incubated at UCLA’s startup incubator program, wants to be your cruise companion. Over half a million people have already downloaded the app that gives you all the information that you need to know before, during and after your cruise.
Jan and Mike Jirout, the two brothers behind Ship Mate have stocked their app to the hilt. It’s literally a one stop mobile destination for everything involving a cruise.
They’ve found that most users are downloading the app about a month before their cruise sets sail. In the pre cruise period Ship Mate is great for checking out rendezvous points and finding activities to participate in while on the cruise. You can also plan out your dining and see in advance ship maps and other resources that you didn’t even think of.
When it’s time to board your cruise ship Ship Mate has ship maps, ship information and even access to deck cams so you can see the action going on around you. There’s also photo galleries and social aspects like cruise chat that will allow you to chat with other users on and off your ship.
The Ship Mate app doesn’t stop after the cruise stops though. You can add more photos to the photo galleries, rate your cruise experience, rate locations and continue chatting about your cruise with others who have gone on cruises. People seem to love Ship Mate as they’ve already done over half a billion cross platform downloads and they’re seeing over 70,000 daily users.
We got a chance to talk with Mike Jirout about Ship Mate, check out the interview below: