GatGridCruises

Magically Valuable Disney Cruises

A Disney cruise planning and deal discovery platform. Not a booking site — an ad-supported media and tools property for families who want transparent, honest information before committing to a Disney cruise.

Tech Stack

• Framework: Next.js 15 (App Router, Server Components)
• Language: TypeScript (strict mode)
• Styling: Tailwind CSS + custom design tokens (navy #0A2540, gold #D4AF37)
• Database: Supabase (Postgres + Auth + RLS) — local seed data for MVP
• Charts: Recharts
• Forms: React Hook Form + Zod
• Icons: Lucide React
• Fonts: Inter (body) + Fraunces (headings)
• Email: Resend (transactional + weekly digest)
• Hosting: Vercel (with cron jobs)

Quick Start

# 1. Clone and install
git clone <repo-url>
cd gatgridcruises
npm install

# 2. Set up environment (optional — app works without it using local seed data)
cp .env.local.example .env.local

# 3. Run dev server
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:3000.

The app runs fully with local seed data out of the box — no Supabase or API keys needed for development.

Project Structure

src/
├── app/                        # Next.js App Router (40 pages)
│   ├── page.tsx                # Homepage
│   ├── deals/                  # Deal grid with filters + sorting
│   ├── sailing/[id]/           # Sailing detail (price chart, itinerary, CTA)
│   ├── ships/                  # Ship index + detail pages
│   ├── guides/                 # 10 SEO pillar content pages
│   ├── tools/
│   │   ├── cost-calculator/    # True cost calculator (15+ categories)
│   │   ├── flights/            # Flight finder for departure ports
│   │   ├── staterooms/         # Stateroom finder + reviews
│   │   ├── transfers/          # Transfer decision tool
│   │   └── compare/            # Side-by-side sailing comparison
│   ├── hotels/                 # Pre-cruise hotel guides by port
│   ├── subscribe/              # Email newsletter signup
│   ├── account/watchlist/      # Saved sailings (localStorage → Supabase)
│   ├── auth/                   # Login/signup (magic link)
│   ├── admin/                  # Admin panel (dashboard, CRUD, ads)
│   ├── api/                    # API routes (subscribe, cron, reviews, alerts)
│   ├── go/[...slug]/           # Affiliate link wrapper with click tracking
│   ├── about/                  # About page
│   ├── disclosures/            # FTC affiliate disclosures
│   ├── privacy/                # Privacy policy
│   └── terms/                  # Terms of use
├── components/
│   ├── layout/                 # Header, Footer
│   └── ui/                     # Ad slots, chatbot, charts, cards, etc.
├── data/                       # Local seed data (ships, ports, sailings, etc.)
├── lib/                        # Utils, data access, auth, scraper, email templates
└── types/                      # TypeScript interfaces
supabase/
└── migrations/                 # Production database schema
docs/
└── boardwalk-compliance-email.html  # Boardwalk Travel Agency email draft

All Pages

Route	Description
/	Homepage with featured deals, stats, newsletter CTA
/deals	All sailings with filters, search, sorting, score badges
/sailing/[id]	Price breakdown, history chart, itinerary, hotels, transfers
/ships	Fleet index (8 ships)
/ships/[slug]	Ship detail with staterooms, sailings, amenities
/hotels	Port hotel index
/hotels/[port]	Port-specific hotel recommendations
/tools/cost-calculator	True trip cost calculator (15+ line items)
/tools/flights	Flight search for departure ports
/tools/staterooms	Stateroom finder with noise ratings
/tools/staterooms/reviews	User stateroom reviews
/tools/transfers	Transfer guide index
/tools/transfers/[port]	Port-specific transfer recommendations
/tools/compare	Side-by-side sailing comparison
/guides	Guide hub (10 articles)
/guides/disney-cruise-cost-guide	True cost breakdown
/guides/best-disney-cruise-staterooms	Category-by-category guide
/guides/port-canaveral-vs-miami	Port comparison
/guides/first-time-disney-cruise-tips	25 essential first-timer tips
/guides/disney-cruise-with-toddlers	Parents guide (ages 0-4)
/guides/castaway-cay-guide	Private island guide
/guides/disney-cruise-packing-list	Complete packing list
/guides/disney-cruise-vs-royal-caribbean	Line comparison
/guides/best-time-to-book-disney-cruise

Key Features

• Sailing Score Algorithm: Weighted formula (60% price, 20% urgency, 20% ship rating)
• Price History Charts: Recharts-powered visualization of price trends over time
• AI Chatbot: Floating concierge with 12+ rule-based responses
• Affiliate Link Tracking: /go/[provider]/[target] wrapper with click logging
• Price Scraper: Automated daily scraping via Vercel cron (6 AM EST)
• Weekly Digest: Automated Sunday email with top deals (10 AM EST)
• JSON-LD Structured Data: TouristTrip, Vehicle, BreadcrumbList, FAQPage schemas
• Accessibility: Skip navigation, ARIA labels, semantic HTML, keyboard navigation

Cruise Data Freshness

The sailing catalog is a committed snapshot (src/data/sailings.json), so it goes stale on its own. Two mechanisms keep that from showing on the site:

1. Read-time expiry. src/lib/data.ts drops any sailing whose departure date is before today in America/Chicago, plus any row with no usable lead price. Nothing is deleted — the read helpers just stop returning those rows, evaluated per request (the listing pages set dynamic = 'force-dynamic').
2. Twice-weekly freshness check. GET /api/cron/data-freshness runs Monday and Thursday at 12:00 UTC (07:00 Central) via the crons block in vercel.json. It sends nothing and writes nothing — it counts expired, unpriced, and near-term sailings and returns needs_refresh with reasons.

Check it by hand at any time:

curl "https://gatgridcruises.com/api/cron/data-freshness?secret=$CRON_SECRET"

It flags a refresh when the catalog is empty, has fewer than 60 bookable sailings, has fewer than 10 departing inside 90 days, is more than 14 days past its newest updated_at, is more than 25% expired, or contains unpriced rows. It always returns 200 — a stale catalog is a job for a human, not a cron retry.

When it flags, regenerate and commit the catalog:

APIFY_TOKEN=… APIFY_DATASET_ID=… npx tsx scripts/fetch-apify-data.ts

Abandoned Quote Follow-Up

GET /api/cron/abandoned-quotes reports quote requests that are still sitting in the new-lead stage roughly 48 hours after they arrived — someone asked for a price and nobody replied. It runs daily at 13:30 UTC via vercel.json.

It identifies and prepares. It does not send. There is no send path in the route or in src/lib/abandoned-quotes.ts. Each flagged lead comes back with a drafted subject and plain-text body for a human to read, edit, and send from the real inbox. The response reports emails_sent: 0 and sending_enabled: false so this is obvious from the payload alone.

curl "https://gatgridcruises.com/api/cron/abandoned-quotes?secret=$CRON_SECRET"

A lead is flagged when its Source came from a quote form (free-quote, request-this-sailing, group-cruise, concierge, transfer), its pipeline stage is still unworked, and first contact was 48 hours to 30 days ago. Past 30 days the nurture drip owns the lead and it drops off this report.

Env var	Default	Effect
CRON_SECRET	—	Required, same as every other cron route
ABANDONED_QUOTES_MARK_CRM	off	Set to true to also stamp each flagged lead's Next Follow-Up with today's date. Still sends no email.

Seed Data

The MVP includes comprehensive local seed data:

• 8 Disney ships with full metadata
• 10 departure ports worldwide
• 18 sample sailings with realistic pricing
• 810 price snapshots (45 days × 18 sailings, 5 price patterns)
• 242 staterooms across all 8 ships
• 42 pre-cruise hotels across 7 ports
• Transfer options for all ports

Deployment to Vercel

# Install Vercel CLI
npm i -g vercel

# Deploy
vercel

# Set environment variables
vercel env add NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_URL
vercel env add NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY
vercel env add SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY
vercel env add RESEND_API_KEY
vercel env add CRON_SECRET
vercel env add ADMIN_ALLOWED_EMAILS

Or connect your GitHub repo to Vercel for automatic deployments on every push.

Supabase Setup

1. Create a project at supabase.com
2. Go to SQL Editor → paste contents of supabase/migrations/001_initial_schema.sql
3. Run the migration — creates 10 tables with RLS policies, indexes, and triggers
4. Copy your project URL and keys to .env.local
5. Update src/lib/data.ts to use Supabase queries instead of local data

Legal

• Independently owned and operated
• Not affiliated with The Walt Disney Company or Disney Cruise Line
• Disney Cruise Line® and related ship names are registered trademarks of The Walt Disney Company

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Built with care by Grayson Starbuck.