How much longer will Disney be using Shutters?

[Bruiserknits]

Seriously, worst photo experience with Disney ever. Ever. I guess we are spoiled with the Photopass system and CM's taking lots of candid shots. We had wonderful experiences with characters and they did some great things, but the Shutters photographers took 2 pictures each, one landscape and one portrait, with each. We were also a bit disappointed in the quality of the pictures. A few of our pictures were actually out of focus. And it seemed like a HUGE waste of materials to print all those pictures. We bought none of the ones they printed as I had pre-purchaed the photobook. I had a hard time filling it though because there just weren't that many pictures to choose from. No roaming photographers on the ship taking candid pictures. Everything was so posed. There seemed to be a ton of pictures taken at Castaway Cay that were more candid (but still seemed very posed and the same) but we never saw a single photographer other than those with the characters.

I'm presuming that Disney has some sort of contract with them, but I truly hope it expires soon because Disney does such a better job with Photopass.

 

[richmo]

I was thinking the same too...but that was in 2010 and they're still using them.

 

[kbovenizer]

I was also very surprised at the lack of "roaming" photographers. We didn't purchase a single photo from shutters. A shame...

Also, the last night was an absolute mob scene. Wall to wall people in there. You couldn't even move. We got so fed up with the inability to see anything that we just left. There has to be a better way.

 

[moremouse]

I agree. It really surprised me that Disney didn't have a fabulous photo department onboard.

I can't stand Carnival, but THEY take and print the best pictures of our family. Those are the only ones we've ever purchased.

 

[DL1957]

I agree with your comments. On our recent Fantasy cruise one of the staff was pressuring a guest into purchasing a photobook when all she wanted was one photo. A point of clearification. The photo area has always been called "Shutters" that is not necessarily the name of the independant contractor they use. We all have to give DCL feed back on this so they can take care of the issue and change when the contract renewal time comes.

 

[MommyMeNDisney]

I was so surprised that the only photo ops with them were the character meets, maybe during dinner and in the atrium before and after dinner. There weren't any photographers taking candid shots. I asked the lady in Shutters just to verify. She confirmed they were only taking pics at the scheduled character meets and before and after dinner.

I wanted the photobook. I had to work REAL HARD to take over 35 pics in 4 nights to fill the book. Very annoying, especially considering how other cruise lines have photographers all over the ship, snapping so many candid shots!

 

[cheribelle]

Since we have only sailed DCL, are other cruise lines just as expensive for purchasing the photos? Or is the price at Shutters kind of like the norm? Just curious....

 

[MommyMeNDisney]

Since we have only sailed DCL, are other cruise lines just as expensive for purchasing the photos? Or is the price at Shutters kind of like the norm? Just curious....

On the Norwegian Epic a couple years ago, it was $19.99 for 8 X 10, $250 for unlimited pics on a disk, in the $300s for disk and prints and $149 for TEN 8 X 10s.

 

[jrabbit]

just to be a little contrarian here - with 6 or 8 "photo" stations set up each evening with characters and backgrounds, do you want to wait "how much longer" for the photographers to take 8 to 10 pictures of everyone in front of you. Oh yea and then there's group of 8 people that end up having 20 or 30 pictures taken because "first everyone, then little Johnny with Mickey, then little Suzie with Mickey and then grandma and grandpa with the kids, and then other set of grandparents .... and on and on and on". Been there waiting in line when one family group took almost all of the characters time with the zillion different configurations.

And yes, they really don't have many photog's roaming the ship. But you can't get them out of your face at dinner time - and even obtrusive in Palo.

 

[moosecrouse]

Also gonna go against stream here and say I appreciate the fact that the photographers aren't all over the ship harassing us. On some other cruise lines it feels like I'm constantly having someone wanting to take pictures when I would prefer to be left alone. Perfectly happy with the way the do it now. Dining room, character meets and option for family potrait on semi formal/formal night is enough for me.

 

[MommyMeNDisney]

Also gonna go against stream here and say I appreciate the fact that the photographers aren't all over the ship harassing us. On some other cruise lines it feels like I'm constantly having someone wanting to take pictures when I would prefer to be left alone. Perfectly happy with the way the do it now. Dining room, character meets and option for family potrait on semi formal/formal night is enough for me.

I agree that there are so many roaming photographers on other cruise lines that it can be annoying. However, a simple "no thank you" or smile, take the picture and never go view it has worked for me. When you purchase an unlimited package or when you need at least 35 pics to fill a photobook, standing in line all week for hours to take a picture with a character or taking a picture on the same staircase or in front of the same fake ship all week is not something most people want 34-100 pictures of. You want to have the memories of your cruise "captured" and candid shots tell a better story than a million pics in front of the same blue and gold staircase.

 

[lbgraves]

I wish they had the CD option when the kids were younger and we had to try and eliminate pictures to take with us. On the PC repo we had a large package for the 8x10s and 6x8s. I wish we could have gotten more, but we already spent more than the CD charges now on those. We have a lot of those pictures around the house now, some of them reprinted for a different size. Sorry you didn't have a good experience.

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

Since we have only sailed DCL, are other cruise lines just as expensive for purchasing the photos? Or is the price at Shutters kind of like the norm? Just curious....

Other lines are far worse and most do not have characters so the staff dress up ( badly). Prices are the same. I know there is a contract but seems on a rolling renewal.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

On the recent WBPC the photogs did roam and take lots of candids. My favorites were the shots they took from the land looking back at everyone on the rails. We got some great shots of our Canal crossing, a very special day indeed!

 

[AquaDame]

I was over the moon to be able to meet Anna & Elsa on our last cruise with no wait.... the pictures were awful (lighting, expressions, out of focus) and they declined to take any with our camera. I wish I had stood my ground and taken our own (taking turns) because I'm not going to deal with the madness in the parks. Oh well.

I've never seen roaming photographers other than in the MDRs on our cruises, except on deck during our Tracy Arm Day.

 

[AngelDisney]

I have the opposite experience regarding the quality of the pictures. The photographers have troubles using our point and shoot cameras. They pictures they took were mostly out of focus. I liked the pictures the photographers took using their cameras, but I did not want to spend extra money on them, so I usually skipped buying any. This time on the August Alaska cruise, DD will just turn 18 and be graduating from high school, so I would like to pre-order the CD and think it is worthwhile to spend the high cost (comparing to WDW and DLR). Now, I am having second thought.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

I have the opposite experience regarding the quality of the pictures. The photographers have troubles using our point and shoot cameras. They pictures they took were mostly out of focus. I liked the pictures the photographers took using their cameras, but I did not want to spend extra money on them, so I usually skipped buying any. This time on the August Alaska cruise, DD will just turn 18 and be graduating from high school, so I would like to pre-order the CD and think it is worthwhile to spend the high cost (comparing to WDW and DLR). Now, I am having second thought.

To clarify, the photographers will not use your camera to take pictures. They will only take photos with their cameras. But, if there is a DCL CM assisting the photographer, they will use your camera to take your picture.

One note about the roving photographers, I found that DCL tends to only have them on special days (the actual day you are in Tracy Arm, or actually transiting the Panama Canal, for example). We also had photographers on our excursions on our Med cruise.

 

[shelbell77]

I was actually quite impressed with them on the recent Panama Canal cruise. Not only did most take a lot of time and care posing you, but they also checked laptop after each shot to make sure it was an okay shot, and adjusting and retaking if it wasn't. There were also roaming photographers on both Panama Canal Crossing day and the night of the Freezing on Deck Frozen Party.

That said, I do agree that they miss a lot of great shots when it comes to the characters. Photo Pass photographers usually get shots as you are walking up, hugging, chatting etc and those tend to be some of the BEST pictures. The ships photographers don't generally do that. We saw Captain Mickey the last night, and he didn't have an official photographer just a cast member (photographers were buys making all our CDs) and the cast member did a great job of getting all those candid shots before/after the "official" shot he took. He had the camera for like 2 minutes and took like 30 pictures!

 

[MunFam]

I was actually quite impressed with them on the recent Panama Canal cruise. Not only did most take a lot of time and care posing you, but they also checked laptop after each shot to make sure it was an okay shot, and adjusting and retaking if it wasn't. There were also roaming photographers on both Panama Canal Crossing day and the night of the Freezing on Deck Frozen Party.

We were also on the WBPC cruise and the Shutters staff were my favorite crew on board and the only people other than the characters/performers to get an "excellent" rating on my comment card. Cebe and Alana were phenomenal from shutters. On the second day, I asked them if we could get shots of more candid stuff like DD dancing with characters or hugging/kissing characters and they said sure, but most of those pictures go unclaimed because the facial recognition software does not pick them up. Even if you give them the card, you still have to go find your pictures on the "lost pictures" screens. I would collect 10-15 pictures per day from the lost files and add them to my portfolio. There were SO many unclaimed (and adorable) pictures in the files each day. They gladly took the candid pictures for us though. They also did a great job of positioning and posing us at the formal backdrops set up before dinners. Some of the best pictures our family has are from those nights.

Additionally, we have candid pictures of our DD dancing on stage during the Frozen day party. I can't remember what it was called... We also have pictures of our family at the Pirate Deck Party and at the Frozen Deck Party. We have pictures from the dinners too. Unfortunately, we only have a few pictures from the actual PC Crossing day (when we were down on deck 4 at the wee hours of the morning). They only focused on Deck 4 and 11. We were on 10 aft and never once saw a photographer. But I will say...most of those pictures were in the lost files, so perhaps people that do not see anything beyond "posed shots" did not look in the lost files.

All in all, we came home with just shy of 400 pictures!

 

[lbgraves]

Regarding the PC pictures, we had heard the photographers get off the ship when going through the locks and take pictures. Make sure you are on the port side and look for them. We waved to catch their attention and got a couple of great shots.