Cruising w/ digital camera

[momemouse]

Santa is bringing me a new camera just in time for our cruise! Will I be able to transfer photos from my memory card to a disc on board, or should I plan to bring a laptop?

 

[sweet angel]

You can have your pics transferred to CD, but it's not free, and I think you have to leave the card for awhile. Why not just buy an extra memory card?

 

[CM_Mom]

To answer original question, you can't transfer photos to disk on the computers on board - no CD or disk access from them. Depending on your preference, I would bring an extra memory card or pay to have the pictures transferred to CD in Shutters. No matter what, I would bring two memory cards. Then you could take pictures with one while the other is being transferred and wouldn't miss anything.

 

[Donalds_best_pal]

I would bring a laptop if you have one. Then you dont have to worry about running out of space on one or even 2 memeory cards. I always have my laptop and my dad usually as his, because we both use them on the plane and stuff. Planning to take lots of pictures on our upcoming cruise. If you can just bring your laptop then you dont have to worry.
Matt

 

[Michigander]

I suggest that you just buy extra memory cards. I bought a SanDisk 256 Meg flash card for $30 just before I cruised in November. I filled this card and still had two 128 Meg cards left in case they were needed. When I got home, I dumped them to my computer and I'm set. Memory is very reasonable in price now.

 

[tvguy]

Extra memory sticks are the best idea. The last thing I want to do on vacation is lug my laptop onto planes and through security, then worry about it getting damaged or stolen when a $30 memory stick would do the trick.

 

[lkohawaii]

I guess I need to buy more memory.....My camera takes smartmedia. Anyone know the most reasonable place to get it. It seems like not everybody carries it. Is this getting to be an old format as far as memory goes?

 

[dizney-cruiser]

on amazon you can a 128 mb smartmedia card for $30.11

 

[SeaSpray]

DH was going to bring the laptop on our cruise in August but changed his mind, which I was glad about because I didn't like the idea of lugging the laptop with us for the sole purpose of downloading our pics. We use XD memory cards for our digital camera. At Shutters they are able to download your memory card onto a CD (plus they give you a printout of thumbnails too) in a couple of hours, EXCEPT if you have XD memory, which we did. We had to leave ours overnight, and it was ready after 5pm the night evening. We bought a second memory card right there at Shutters to use in the meantime. The cost of putting our pics onto a CD was $14.95. We thought this was a decent price and didn't mind paying it at all. The new 256 XD memory card that we bought at Shutters was about $60. Not the best price, but certainly not bad either.

I don't think we'll ever consider bringing the laptop again, knowing how easy and relatively inexpensive it is to have the pics transferred to a CD onboard the ship.

 

[staylor]

My digital camera uses compact flash. I just bought brand new, in the packaging 2- 128mb cards and 1- 512 mb cards on ebay for $67 total shipped.
I bought from the same person and before the bidding was over I emailed them and asked to combine shipping. They were very nice and did combine.
So far, I know the 128's hold at least 100 pics each. I haven't been able to max out the 512 but I figure it will hold at least 400 or so.
Just a suggestion!
Staci

 

[Donalds_best_pal]

I guess if you would only be bringing it for pictures then it might not be worth bringing. I always bring it just because I use it for school and entertainment on the long drive or plane trip. Try newegg.com, they might have good deals on memory.
Matt

 

[jova]

We were planning on bringing our laptop, as it also can play our DVD movies, or any games the girls care to bring. I was a little worried about just bringing memory cards and not being able to check them until I got home. I've read about some people taking their cards home and by some defect in the card none of their pictures were salvageable. I figure, by putting them in the laptop each day, I will know right away if there is a problem. We have a rolling briefcase for the laptop and above-stated movies and games, otherwise I would think twice about lugging it. It's heavy!

 

[musicdude]

I just picked up a 256 sd card for $24.99 at Media Play. Then I took the ad to Best Buy and had them match. So two two cards for around $50. Not to bad bargaining!!
Chris

 

[Azptcruiser]

Seems that everyone has already voiced their recommendations. Mine is the same as most...buy more memory. And if you can afford it, buy more than what you think you might need. I used 2-512's and 2-256's on a 7 day cruise. My spare was the 32mb that came with the camera.

I bought mine at Costco...they had the cheapest price at the time.

 

[4formickey]

olympus still makes the smart media card and i took 2 of them with me. We had over 500 pictures on one card and never used the second one. Bring extra card and leave the laptop at home.

 

[tap & dap]

Found a great item that someone recommended to me, a Smartdisk Flasktrak they come in 20Gigabyte 40G 80G. The 20G holds more pictures than you could ever want to take on one cruise. With a 6 megapix camera I get 563 on a 1G Card so 20G would be 11,260 pictures could never imagine taking that many.

It is about the size of a PDA with a flip-up color screen. You can use it to download any type of media card. It then stores the pictures and allows you to view them right on the device.

The 20G is around $300.00, much cheaper than a laptop and it fits right in the camera bag. I did not want to take the laptop on the cruise ship either due to the weight and size,this device has been great. You can leave pictures from previous trips on it so you can show friends.

When you get home plugs into the computer through a USB and downloads in about 1/10 the time it takes to download the media cards. Plus on the device you can set up seperate files and put certain pictures into one directory and others into another, when you download to the computer they all stay in their seperate files.

Check it out and see what you think, but so far we love it.