Convince Me, People...Should I Get Memory Maker?

[tink9702]

but can't you still purchase them separately?? It's been two years but last time when I had photopass, I simply purchased a few of those "dark, ride" shots.
Did they stop allowing you to do that? I don't have small kids with autograph books and my dslr is on a strap across my body so for me it's no handling at all. I whip it around but like I said, I take my camera everywhere so I'm use to it.

last question is, how have the lines been? one of the problems I had with photopass is long lines at the more popular places. right outside of MK is ridiculous, as is the in front of the castle.

Yes you can purchase the photos individually if you don't mind taking your camera everywhere.

 

[eliza61]

Yes, you can buy any of them separately. As far as lines are concerned, we only had to wait for one other family a few times. There are several photographers up and down Main Street, in "front" of the castle so I never saw a wait for them. In fact, I would often see some just standing there waiting. There is one behind the castle, too, that will do a great shot trying to pull the Sword from the Stone.

Yes you can purchase the photos individually if you don't mind taking your camera everywhere.

Thanks guys. I think the only shot, I still want is the family in front of the train station outside right after the turnstiles which always seems to have a wait for the photopass photogs.

Tink, I take my camera with me everywhere. lol, I'll remember my camera before my cell phone. I mean I've been going waay before photopass came about so that's no biggie and I take tons of pictures of the surroundings so even if I decide on MM I'll have my camera.

I do like a few of the ride shots where I won't use my camera but pretty much outside of kali river rapids it's on me.

 

[helenm29]

My husband and I have never been away on a trip without our children for more then 2 days at a time....in THIRTY FIVE YEARS! I love my children to pieces but we figure that since we get to do this, having some pictures of the two of us would be proof that we actually did it! lol! usually, if the whole family was going my husband would take all the pictures...never knew he was even there!

 

[tink9702]

Eliza - I think I was just overwhelmed with the camera, two autograph books, two sharpies & two children! lol I'll still be bringing my camera but not bothering to use it for Meet&greets. We did a TON of M&G's last trip and it just was too much, I ended up not actually interacting with the characters & my kids because I was too busy dealing with all the stuff.

 

[MOQu]

I keep vacillating on getting one and I need some ammo to justify the cost....or to nix the idea.
Thoughts?

Have you considered joining a photo share? That's what we do.

 

[eliza61]

Eliza - I think I was just overwhelmed with the camera, two autograph books, two sharpies & two children! lol I'll still be bringing my camera but not bothering to use it for Meet&greets. We did a TON of M&G's last trip and it just was too much, I ended up not actually interacting with the characters & my kids because I was too busy dealing with all the stuff.

LOL I sooo feel your pain. I still have post traumatic syndrome stress from the first year with the autograph books, only to be out done when pin trading started up.

 

[brazzledazzler]

DH & I got the Memory Maker in May and loved it, however: 1) We are FL residential Seasonal Passholders 2) We went in early May and were on our mini-honeymoon trip to Disney and wanted lots of photos 3) We were going again in late May, and since Memory Maker is good for photos taken for 30 days, it was 2x worth it 4) We made a lot of effort to get a photo with lots of characters and hit up every Memory maker ride/photographer we could.

However, as FL resident passholders, I don't see us getting it again. It was great for commemorating our mini-honeymoon and pictures with characters, they photographers took some awesome photos.

 

[Mikie]

My standard advice is that there is a list of things that makes MM worthwhile. The more of these apply to you, the more likely you are to find MM "worth it". Contrary to some other PP's, even though I love MM , I would not advise leaving your camera at home - there are so many unposed moments on a trip that MM alone wouldn't cover the whole trip for me. Here's my list:

- longer trip vs shorter
- you'll be likely to *do* something with your pictures, like frame, scrapbook, etc
- you like to get the whole family in your shots, not missing the family photographer all the time
- you'll be doing events that take a ton of shots like Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, Pirates League, Jedi Training Academy, Enchanted Tales with Belle
- you plan to meet characters. One of the biggest benefits, to me, is that photographers will take many photos during the meet - high fives, hugs, asking for the autograph, interacting - not just the final "pose and say cheese" they would take with your own camera
- you will ride the rides that take photos
- you're doing meals that have pre-seating photos like CRT, Akershus, Chef Mickey, Tusker House, O'hana (the characters that come around at all character meals are a separate thing where you take your own photos, no Photopass Photographers)
- you are willing to stop at quite a few Photpass photographers in the parks (like the iconic Castle, Epcot Ball, Tree of Life pictures, and many others throughout the parks)
- you are interested in getting Magic Shots or animated Magic Shots. While photographers will take pictures with your own camera for you, you can't replicate these
- you are interested in adding Disney-themed borders, stickers, character signatures, etc with MM editing

 

[vinotinto]

Mikie, that's a very helpful and comprehensive list. Thank you!

 

[Accident]

We look at it this way. We like to get 1 picture in every park taken. Some parks there's a couple other angles or backgrounds we like to get a couple more. We might want a couple of the ride photos. Generally it's less than 12 we want to keep and it's cheaper to just skip.. If for some reason there is a really special trip and we go picture crazy, I'm ok with the extra cost to get MM after the trip when I can see the photos first... In the overall cost of the trip, $40 isn't going to ruin it.

The exception, when we were there for the holidays last year, we went overboard as it was the first time we ever did that, we really wanted pictures with all the holiday decorations all over the place. We knew we were going to do this and it made sense to pre-buy it. At the time, we just didn't know if we would ever make it back during that time of year.

The most important thing to know, getting the photos taken is FREE! it's downloading them that your buying. Do it up even if your not sure you'll buy it after.

 

[PurpleKomodo]

We loved MM. Some of the best pictures we have are from Enchanted Tales with Belle and Jedi Training Academy. Also, we did many Meet and Greets so those pictures are great as well. For us, it freed up DH and I to just enjoy the moments with DS instead of trying to photograph them. The magic shots were super fun too. The ride photos and videos are great. We have a super good one of my nephew on Dinosaur. Like I said, for us, it allowed us to enjoy the moments instead of trying to photograph them. For a 7 night stay in a group of 9, we ended up with over 300 pictures. It was one of the things we said was well worth our money and we will do it again.

 

[ctblubird]

I just got back from WDW. I'm debating on purchasing MM for one reason….my dd wants every picture and can't fathom the thought that we may never see some of those photos again! I understand her point, but, its awfully expensive. On our trip 7 years ago, I purchased MM ahead of time and did my best to have as many photos taken of us as possible. DD was 11 at the time. It wasn't nearly enough to justify the cost. Thats why I didn't bother on this trip. The difference for this trip is she's 18 now and went on more rides that took photos. I still don't believe we have enough to justify the cost, however, there are quite a few photos I like and would want to purchase. So, do I want to pay $120 for 8 photos or $200 for 90? It may sound like a lot of photos, but most are duplicated.
If you have never experienced a Disney Photographer, this is what they do. They take your photo vertically, horizontally, and close up. Thats 3 photos right there of the same pose. Not every photographer adds "Disney Magic" to the photo. This trip, we had 1 photo experience where they added a bunch of Magic, and two where they added a little. The rest were regular photos. I don't know if I needed to specifically request it, or if the lines were too long, but , not a lot of Magic this trip. So out of my 90 photos, I have about 30-35 in poses. out of those 35 , I can weed out the "bad pictures". Bad pictures are those where your eyes are half opened or squinting because of the sun, or its not centered properly (we took a photo with Lightning McQueen and Mater. Out of 4 photos, only one has most of both cars in it, The others are cutting one or the other in half. ??? I don't get it either), or you're photo bombed by unsuspecting travelers. Then you have your ride photos - some are fun, some are funny, and some have you hiding behind the person in front of you. At this point, I'm down to about 15-18 photos that I would want. Is it worth $200 for 15 photos? I can whittle that down to 8-10.
Now the funny part is that when you go to your photo pass, that tell you that you have 213 photos and you're thinking thats awesome - definitely worth the $200 until you realize that most of those photos are Disney inserted photos (Pluto in front of the Spaceship Earth, EPCOT flower show topiaries, and other Disney character posed photos). For example, dd took photos with Peter Pan. There are about 5 pictures of her and PP and 8 Disney Photos of Peter Pan Characters in Scenes; PP and Capt Hook, PP and Wendy, PP and the Lost Boys, etc. Once again, out of the 213 photos they say I have, 90 have my family in them and the rest are beautiful Disney photos.
Putting the borders and the scrapbook tools to work on the photos are great. But, I have 18 individual photos to accessorize. How many photos of the same pose do you want? I still don't think I can justify it.

I really have to see what pictures I took myself and put them up against the disney photos. cancel out the duplicates and get the number of purchased photos down to about 5 or 6.
I hope my thought process helps someone decide or has enough information to help you prepare for your trip.

 

[Lizbet24]

Have you considered joining a photo share? That's what we do.

How do you do that?

 

[Eandbmom]

We did not get MM last year and I really regretted it. Next year we have budgeted the cost of MM into our vacation" I won't go without it again.

 

[CodeGoddess]

We have been thinking about this too since we are doing a big family vacation (all adults) and would love some photos of all of us together. Here is where I get confused.

1. How do accounts linked together in MDE effect MM?
2. Do all of us need to purchase MM or can one person buy it and download all the photos?
3. How do ride photos work with a group and MM?
4. I read something about ride photos not being available without MM, is that true?
5. We are doing all the rides where photos/videos are taken but no character dinners or M&Gs, will we still get a lot of photos from just areas around the parks?

 

[siskaren]

We have been thinking about this too since we are doing a big family vacation (all adults) and would love some photos of all of us together. Here is where I get confused.

1. How do accounts linked together in MDE effect MM?
2. Do all of us need to purchase MM or can one person buy it and download all the photos?
3. How do ride photos work with a group and MM?
4. I read something about ride photos not being available without MM, is that true?
5. We are doing all the rides where photos/videos are taken but no character dinners or M&Gs, will we still get a lot of photos from just areas around the parks?

1. I'm not sure what you mean, but everyone who is on the Friends and Family list of the person buying MM can have their pictures included.

2. No, only one person needs to buy it. That person is the only one who can do edits and downloads though unless they want to share their log in information with everybody else.

3. There's a sensor on the ride that detects the Magic Band and adds the picture to the account.

4. Not true.

5. If you make the effort to stop for as many as possible, sure. Plus remember, you can add borders and do other edits to the pictures that will add to the total number

 

[Jadyreen1282]

I could write a book about it or just say the magic pics are more than worth price.

 

[CodeGoddess]

5. If you make the effort to stop for as many as possible, sure. Plus remember, you can add borders and do other edits to the pictures that will add to the total number

I was more wondering about photo spots around the park for family photos. Are there a lot of those? (I would be using Photoshop for edits so all I really want to do is download the images themselves so no value in the software for us.)

 

[MindyDean]

I have bought it on the last two trips. I love it. Those pictures are my souvenirs. I get pictures with everyone in it. On the last trip, it was just me and hubby. It's hard to get pictures together without asking people to snap picture. And I want lots of pictures. Well worth the money to me.

 

[Mambo Junkie]

I bought it last December. I liked it fine; it really came in handy when my backpack got stolen with all my photopass cards in it (Enchanted Tales, Visa M&G, Baymax and Wonderland Tea Party). They were all on the Memory Maker when we checked. I was heartbroken to think we'd lost the Tea Party pictures especially.