Glossary

Allotment: Cabins set aside for one agency on chosen departures. Unused ones return to general sale a set number of days before departure.

Amendment: A change to a confirmed booking (date, cabins, occupancy). It is priced first, may carry a fee, and creates a new revision.

API client: The login an online platform's system uses: a client ID and a secret.

Audit log: The record of every action: who, what, when. It never contains personal data such as passports.

Back office: The Riverdesk website your staff work in.

Block: Cabins taken off sale. An emergency block can take out a cabin even when it is booked.

Booking reference: The code of a booking, for example VS-26-00610. The letters are your company's prefix.

Bucket: One group of cabins on one leg and category: the pool, an allotment or a block.

Channel: Anyone who sells your cabins: your office, an agency, a platform.

Contract: The terms a channel sells under for one vessel.

Cut-off: The day before departure after which guest details are fixed and cabins are assigned (7 days by default).

Deposit / balance: The first payment due, and the rest.

Event / webhook: A change Riverdesk announces to channels, and the message sent to their system.

Exception: Something the system could not decide alone. It appears on Today.

Hold: Cabins reserved for a short time before confirmation. It expires on its own.

Idempotency key: A unique code a channel sends with each action, so repeating the action never does it twice.

Invariant: A rule that must always be true, such as "never more booked than exists". It is checked every night.

Itinerary (sailing pattern): A cruise you sell on the route, for example 4 nights from Luxor.

Leg (departure): The vessel sailing from one boarding port to the next. Cabins are counted per leg.

Manifest: The passenger list for a departure. It is the only export with passport numbers.

Market: Which prices apply: international or Egyptian resident.

On request: A contract where the agency asks and the office decides.

Option: An agency's hold, 72 hours by default.

Outage pack: The nightly PDF of the next 14 days, emailed so the office can work if Riverdesk is unreachable.

Pool: The cabins shared by your office and pool agencies.

Quote: A priced proposal for one sailing and set of cabins, the step before a hold.

Rate plan: A price list for one market and currency.

Revision: One version of a booking. Each change adds one.

Rooming list: Each cabin with its guests, for the crew. It has no passports.

Sailing: One itinerary on one date.

Season: A date range with its own prices.

Stop sale: Pausing sales on chosen departures and categories, or for one channel.

Supplement: An extra charge on certain dates, such as a gala dinner.

Two-step sign-in (MFA): A code from a phone app, required for owners and finance.

Vacancy sheet: The list of free cabins for the coming weeks, to send to agencies.

Worker: The background program that expires holds, returns allotments, sends webhooks, makes documents and runs the nightly checks.