Is the Cruise Photography Package Worth it?

overstreetprncss

prncssbex
Joined
Jan 23, 2011
Hey everyone! My husband and I are doing our first Disney Cruise on the Dream in January 2019. I love pictures and scrapbooking, so I've been looking over our options for pictures over our vacation. I've always gone the photopass route on our trips to Disney, but I have a hard time imagining a lot of photo opportunities on the cruise and the photo package is really expensive. I'm wondering if I should just go ahead and get the package a head of time, just rely on whatever pictures we take with out own cameras, or wait until the actual cruise and decide after I've seen what pictures have been taken. I'd love anyone's advice or input. Thanks!
 
Hey everyone! My husband and I are doing our first Disney Cruise on the Dream in January 2019. I love pictures and scrapbooking, so I've been looking over our options for pictures over our vacation. I've always gone the photopass route on our trips to Disney, but I have a hard time imagining a lot of photo opportunities on the cruise and the photo package is really expensive. I'm wondering if I should just go ahead and get the package a head of time, just rely on whatever pictures we take with out own cameras, or wait until the actual cruise and decide after I've seen what pictures have been taken. I'd love anyone's advice or input. Thanks!
Do you like character pics? You can get a lot of great ones on the cruise. They'll be nice & snap a pic with your phone, too, so you don't have to buy the package, but their photographers will get a bunch of good character pics. Also, a photographer will photograph you during one of your dinners, typically formal night, and that can make a really nice photo.

Buying the photo package isn't a must imo. We've cruised 4 times and only purchased it once: the most recent time. I think that's because it was the Alaska cruise & the characters' outfits were so unique.
 
On our last two cruises we have purchased on board the 10 digital photos for $150. Super pricey, but these photos are the only ones I have of our whole family of 5! I am terrible at asking others to take a picture. The quality is very good. On the last day of the cruise I picked my favorite 10 to purchase - there were a few more I would have liked, but not enough to go to the unlimited at $250.

My children hate getting picture taken, we don't do character greets, and I still found it easy to find 10 pictures I liked. I can imagine others find the unlimited worth the price. There are even photographers on castaway. They got a great shot of my husband and me (we never get a picture just the two of us either!) and a priceless shot of my youngest (age 3) playing in the water. The color/quality of the castaway pictures blew me away.
 
I'm a scrapbooker, and my "souvenir" for myself is always the unlimited photos. LOL I've always gotten way more than I could ever use. We did many character photos with our daughter, and we also made sure to get nice pictures of all 3 of us before dinner each night. Lots of different backdrops to choose from on the different nights. There are also photo opportunities on Castaway Cay and the photos when you board the ship. Even photos with Mickey in the terminal before you board the ship. They used to come take your picture in the restaurants some nights as well. Not sure if they still do. I think if you're a scrapbooker, you won't be disappointed with the number of photo opportunities available.
 


Hey everyone! My husband and I are doing our first Disney Cruise on the Dream in January 2019. I love pictures and scrapbooking, so I've been looking over our options for pictures over our vacation. I've always gone the photopass route on our trips to Disney, but I have a hard time imagining a lot of photo opportunities on the cruise and the photo package is really expensive. I'm wondering if I should just go ahead and get the package a head of time, just rely on whatever pictures we take with out own cameras, or wait until the actual cruise and decide after I've seen what pictures have been taken. I'd love anyone's advice or input. Thanks!

I think there are some factors that will make it worth while for some not all. If you are travelingwith extended family, when you take group pictures out and about or at dinner, others can have a copy. Also, if your kids are older where they can go about the ship on their own, they can go to the character meet and greets by themselves and you get the photo memory.

We got the digital copy of all pics, about 300 of them on a 7 night, which included a Star Wars day.
 
We got the unlimited package, and I love many of the pictures, but as a word of warning, they put a frame or a logo on all the pictures. Some are small but most are large and kind of cheesy. I would have preferred the option to add borders like you can do with the MemoryMaker at WDW.
 


We got the unlimited package, and I love many of the pictures, but as a word of warning, they put a frame or a logo on all the pictures. Some are small but most are large and kind of cheesy. I would have preferred the option to add borders like you can do with the MemoryMaker at WDW.
I always buy the all digital package and I agree with this. The borders are super tacky IMO and often hard to crop.
 
I have to say they do a great job on the photos. It is the only time I can get family photos and they look fantastic. As you enjoy photos and scrap booking you might really like all the photos you get. Our table mates always get the photo package and they leave with scads of photos! There are so many opportunities on the ship for photos. They also make you look good. For some reason it is hard to get a photo of the 3 of us that look good but they always manage to get a few.
 
I've gotten the photo package on all 5 of my cruises and I love it. Even though they will take a picture with your phone or camera, in some places the lighting is not good and their pictures are always so much better. I personally like the frames around the pictures. I find they're pretty easy to crop out usually too if I want to when creating photo books. Just an FYI to the OP, if you decide once you're on board that you don't want the photo package, you can get your money refunded (it has to be by a certain time though).
 
Im confused. Arent there 2 unlimited packages? One is a digital copy and the others are all printed, right?
 
Two cruises and a third upcoming and I love the photo package. I don't find them difficult to crop and I love being in the photo. Best photos I've ever gotten of my girls were on our last cruise.
Here are examples of ones that are fun to crop. Don’t get me wrong, they take much better photos than I can because of lighting and equipment. But why they put tacky borders you cannot remove on all of the photos is beyond me. The first time I bought the digital file in 2009 they were either optional or not there. Wish they’d go back to that because for me many of the photos are unusable.
 

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I do have some with full borders but I have lots like this too which are easy to edit out. Sorry for the size change. I'm not good at PS or anything like that.
small logo.jpg donald.jpg .
 
I too am interested in getting a photo package as the Memory Maker package we got at WDW was amazing. A few questions:

1. If you are limited to 10 Digital pics do you get to pick which ones you want or they will only take 10 pictures with you.

2. How are character photo sessions done, is there always a photographer there or can you just get someone to snap a photo with you all?

3. Is the photo package something you can purchase the day of cruise?

thanks all, my first post too!
 
I think the packages are totally overpriced and the quality of the photographers is pretty bad. We took all of our own pics or asked a CM to take the occasional family pic and I don’t regret it at all. We have tons of great pics from our trip.
 
We've gotten the picture package on our last 2 cruises and think they are worth it for us. It's nice to not have to worry about having someone take your picture, although one of the CM's will be more then happy to use your camera for you. I like the quality of the photos, we normally use a photo for our Christmas card. On certain evenings when there are less people around we can get family, paired and single photos taken. On a 7 night cruise we got over 400 photos taken. We use the photos to make a photo book on shutterfly as well.
 
What I’ve learned from the DIS is make sure your usb is in fact, yours. I’ve read about families getting switched and Disney not being able to get another copy to the correct family.
 

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