Is Memory Maker ALWAYS worth the money?

[slickpoetry]

We are spending two days at MK plus on the third day doing MNSSHP.

I have numerous questions about MM.

1. Are photographers present at MNSSHP?
2. How many pictures do you generally get per day while touring MK?
3. Is our two (and a half) days worth of photos worth $149 for the privilege of downloading them?
4. If I don't want to get MM, but still want a photo or two, can I just buy them a la carte, and if so what is the price per photo?

 

[JeremyGNJ]

We are spending two days at MK plus on the third day doing MNSSHP.

I have numerous questions about MM.

1. Are photographers present at MNSSHP?
2. How many pictures do you generally get per day while touring MK?
3. Is our two (and a half) days worth of photos worth $149 for the privilege of downloading them?
4. If I don't want to get MM, but still want a photo or two, can I just buy them a la carte, and if so what is the price per photo?

3. Two and a half days? I don't think so. Pictures cost $15 each to download. You'd have to want to purchase at least 10 pictures to make it worthwhile. I doubt you'd get that many in 2 1/2 days.

I only bought MM because we aren't Disney fanatics. We haven't gone in 6 years, and probably wont go again for 5-6 years. Because of that, I want the "whole package". if I went ever year like a lot of people here do, there's no way I'd spend the money.

 

[CalDisneyMomof2]

I won't do it again and we spent 5 days in the parks. I didn't feel like there were enough photographers and went to EVERY one we saw! In 5 days we got 122 pictures. Of those 122 there were only about 20 different shots(including like 5 rides) and the rest were just multiples(maybe just a different angle). I MIGHT have bought 10 shots if I had bought them individually.

I would DEFINETELY not do it for 2 1/2 days. You're better off buying them individually.

 

[worm761]

We are spending two days at MK plus on the third day doing MNSSHP.

I have numerous questions about MM.

1. Are photographers present at MNSSHP?
2. How many pictures do you generally get per day while touring MK?
3. Is our two (and a half) days worth of photos worth $149 for the privilege of downloading them?
4. If I don't want to get MM, but still want a photo or two, can I just buy them a la carte, and if so what is the price per photo?

It really depends on what you want. We are going for 3 days this summer and I have purchased MM. On the first day my MIL, step FIL, SIL, 2 nieces and a nephew will be joining us. I want those pictures. We are also eating at Tusker House with them and would need at least 3 sets of pictures there.

My other reason for it: My DH's first trip was fantastic. We came home, put the pictures we had on our memory card on the computer. Needed the camera for something else and deleted the memory card. No big deal. Right? Nope. 3 days later the computer crashed and wiped the memory. ALL of my pictures gone in mere seconds. The only pictures I have of that trip are my Photopass pictures. So, now every trip we take I get the Photopass or MM now.

 

[slickpoetry]

We came home, put the pictures we had on our memory card on the computer. Needed the camera for something else and deleted the memory card. No big deal. Right? Nope. 3 days later the computer crashed and wiped the memory. ALL of my pictures gone in mere seconds. .

I feel for you. That's a terrible thing to have happen. But whenever I put my pictures on my computer I also immediately upload them to snapfish so they're stored "in the cloud" as well.

From what others are saying, it sounds like in a 2.5 day trip I likely won't get more than 10 pictures worth ordering. Thanks everyone for your advice.

 

[Beida]

i just get pictures taken with my camera. Usually i get 2 photos i really like.

 

[JillyBean1899]

Over 2 and a half days we got 50 photos, and that's because we kept forgetting about it (we did get all the ride photos, though). I'm going back in a few weeks and it will still be active then, so I'm going to make this trip a "take a picture with EVERYTHING" trip lol.

 

[rapunzels]

We are spending two days at MK plus on the third day doing MNSSHP.

Are you doing the other parks, or just MK? You imply there is a 3rd day.. so I was a little confused on how long your Disney stay is...

My family only found value in doing the photopass +, or in this case MM, on party trips....

 

[Zeebs]

last time we went it was just photo pass but we didn't feel that it was worth the money and we were there 14 days.

I hate having to search out the photopass people, we aren't big put everything in a frame when we get home people. The photopass people are nice enough to take a photo with your camera if you so wish so for the few shots that we all want to be in, 1 in every park I can either buy it or get them to take a photo on my camera.

I realise that others love it but for us it wasn't worth the money AND the system seems to have flaws, I can't be bothered spending my time writing down where and when each photo is taken to ensure it is on my MM. If I am paying $150 for a product I would think it should be working right so that I didn't need a back up plan.

Kirsten

 

[AngiTN]

Gosh, we must be photo bums. I've done a 6 day, a 3 day and a 10 day trip. I've never gotten lest than 50 pics a day and had hundreds at the end of the trip, even the 3 day trip. I've only done the MM 1 time, on our 10 day trip and it was ok but I doubt I'd do that again. I'll just do the traditional photo archive. I'm not a huge fan of ride photos and we aren't doing any of the character meals where the pic is included so MM isn't worthwhile. But I think the prepurchase of the Archive disk is. It's only $119 and I know for a fact I'll want enough pics to more than cover that cost.

I love knowing we don't have to bring our camera or if something happens, I have pictures. Not using their PP would give me the shakes worrying about photos the entire time.

 

[slickpoetry]

Are you doing the other parks, or just MK? You imply there is a 3rd day.. so I was a little confused on how long your Disney stay is...

My family only found value in doing the photopass +, or in this case MM, on party trips....

We're just doing MK. People in my party insisted that we had to do Universal, St. Augustine, and a day at the ocean, so even though we are in FL for a week our time at Disney is pretty short.

 

[nmartin48]

Last year I was only there for a day and a half. I didn't want to spend the money on the photo pass cd as I got very few pics taken. Instead I uploaded my pics that I took to the photo pass site and created a book out of both my pics and the photo pass photographer pics. I felt that was a much better use of my money. This included pics from MNSSHP.

 

[mslhb]

We are skipping it this trip. While we have gotten great photos in the past... When I really looked at it there were maybe only 2-3 that I took the digital file and then had them printed into pics. Most of the pics were used to make a Disney photo book which I didn't need to pay the photo pass cd/+ or whatever fee for. So we are going the alacarte route this time. When Disney pushed the price over the $99 mark was the mental breaking point for me.

 

[bookgirl]

For me it's not, but I have no kids, don't do character meals, and I hate ride pictures.

I usually get my one free Disney Visa meet picture and then I stop for PP and will sometimes buy 1 or 2. The most I've ever spent was about $60.

 

[dachsie]

Last month I was able to go to WDW for 3 days. I purchased MM because I wanted some updated photos. I went to character meets, found photographers around the parks, etc. In 3 days I had 140 pics taken which ended up costing $1 a picture. To me it was worth it because I wanted the pics updated since I had lost over 100lbs since I had last been to Disney. In your case, you have to weigh the importance of the pictures with the price. If you just want a few, then I wouldnt do it and would just go to a Photo center and buy the few you want.

The next time I will purchase MM is when I take my niece and her friend to WDW for their graduation from HS. Her friend has never been. So I will get it and download the pics and load them on a flash drive for them to have.

 

[SpringSprite]

so there are photographers at MNSSHP? I am debating MM too, and that will tip the scales in favor of yes...

 

[ariel326]

hmmm.. that's tough.

We were there 3 days and got over 175 pictures. Over 200 when you include the decorated ones.

But, we went to 3 parks, did lots of character M&G's, Chef Mickeys, some magic shots, ETWB, ride photos, and stopped at every photographer we saw- including photographers at multiple locations. I'm glad we stopped at multiple photographers at the same location because some photographers we just had better chemistry with and got better pictures or had just little better view of the background. We also stopped at some of the same locations at night too so we got places that were all lit up which we thought were pretty.


If you are only doing MK I would suggest stopping at as many M&G's as you can- and stop for every photographer you see throughout the park. There is even one that usually stands outside the front gate by the train station and that one gets missed a lot because people are so excited to get in the park.

I would also do some searches on magic shots- so if you see a photographer without a tripod, ask them if they do magic shots. that will get you even more photos in different poses. I would even maybe do some photopass image searches on google and look at all the places others have had their picture taken. It might give you an idea of places to look for photographers around the park.

I know there is map of different photographers around the MK here on DIS somewhere. I think someone cut and pasted it together - that seemed pretty helpful.

Finally, the nice thing if you do lots of character M&G's is that they start taking pictures the moment your child stats interacting with the characters. So with each character you get a handful of shots. Some of my favorite pictures are actually the candids of my son interacting with them. Those are the pictures that I actually like most- the smiles, the hugs, the excitement. Pictures I would have missed if I was taking pictures because I would have been busy supervising my son.

Good luck on your decision!

 

[ariel326]

I forgot to add- Here is kind of the process that we went through to decide if it would be worth it for us.

We knew that with old photopass the photos were roughly 12-15 to purchase. We knew given our past purchasing history at -theme parks and on a cruise - that we would be purchasing our photo from Chef Mickeys, a couple ride photos, a photo from ETWB, and most likely 2 park photos. At photopass prices that would have cost us at least $90, and that would have only gotten us 6 pictures.

we decided that to us, although the $150 for memory maker is obviously more expensive, it would be worth it. If we were already going to pay $90 for 6 photos, as long as we got more then 10 photos (which would have cost 150 at 15 a picture) then we were getting our money's worth.

Hope that helps!

 

[Sandy Mouse]

I was waffling about getting MM for our upcoming trip but had forgotten that we plan to do Chef Mickey's and probably Jedi Training Academy, too.
Now it just makes sense.

 

[ariel326]

I was waffling about getting MM for our upcoming trip but had forgotten that we plan to do Chef Mickey's and probably Jedi Training Academy, too.
Now it just makes sense.

Chef Mickeys you get one posed picture in front of the Chef Mickey Statue. No character pictures though. I knew that going in so I was okay with it, but I would have been disappointed if I hadn't known that and thought MM photographers were going to be around..

NOt sure about Jedi training though.