Memory Maker..the good, the bad, the ugly...

[MNDisneyMommy]

If I had season passes and went all the time...no. But for most of us, this is the trip of the year or every few years or even lifetime...and in that case, YES, absolutely worth it.

We went with a party of 10 and so we paid once and since we were all linked as family everyone's pictures showed up under that one account. It took an extra day or two for the other folks pictures to show up (for example, when my parents had their date night in the world showcase and got amazing pics near France, or when my brother did a bunch of character visits) but that wasn't an issue. When we were together as a group we scanned my band and they showed up within hours usually. For sharing we set up a Photostream and I shared all the pics that way. Some of them are mediocre but most are really excellent.

Plus all the benefits of everyone being in the picture, the quality, the magic shots - worth it! We just stopped every time we saw a photographer with no line, and then snagged our ride pictures and meal pictures and we had hundreds by the end of the week.

Love it!

 

[J.C.&ALI'SMOM]

I just ask the PhotoPass photographers to take a photo of us with my camera. They are always very nice and willing to help. My camera is better than the one they use anyway.

 

[Atilley]

We loved it last time and have purchased it already for our October trip. That said I will say the first ever ride my DS rode was splash mountain 2 years ago (he was 3) the ride photo never linked. I was kinda bummed that I didn't have that photo as he wouldn't get back on splash that trip. We had been told by a CM no need to scan it would link automatically. After that we started making sure someone scanned a magic band whether the CM said we needed to or not. All the other photos were there.

 

[Kimberly9701]

We always get it; it's part of the cost of a WDW trip.

Otherwise, there would be no evidence that my husband had ever been to WDW.

This made me laugh. I feel the same way about me.. my son and I travel together, and typically all photos are of just him. I LOVED that memory maker actually allowed us to have fun photos of the 2 of us!

 

[Becc1]

Are you able to have more than 1 group on the Memory Maker? My best friend is traveling the same week we are and We were wondering if we could go in on it together. Do we have to link our reservations? I'll be getting it regardless but it would be nice if we could split the costs

 

[Velkoor]

Are you able to have more than 1 group on the Memory Maker? My best friend is traveling the same week we are and We were wondering if we could go in on it together. Do we have to link our reservations? I'll be getting it regardless but it would be nice if we could split the costs

From what I've experienced the reservations have to be linked, but you don't have to be there the same time. Our friends are arriving earlier then us, and I was able to link them to my MM. I believe as far as costs go, it can only be purchased by 1 reservation number aka 1 person pays. But I'm sure if you ask your friend might reimburse partially. I'm not asking our friends to pay, because we're getting it anyways.

 

[CamperMomma]

Kind of piggy backing off this...is there any issue with a "split stay"? We will be at WDW for 2 days, then on DCL for 4, then back to WDW for 2 days. Will the $149 fee (or whatever the cost is) cover all of our days at WDW? We are staying at Shades of Green, I assume we don't have to be at a WDW resort to use this?

 

[PurpleKomodo]

We had it for our last trip and absolutely LOVED it! Below are some of our reasons:

• I got to just enjoy watching DS soak up magic at character M&G and Enchanted Tales with Belle. Since I knew I would get pictures, I did not have to watch him have fun from behind a camera or phone as I tried to capture it. That was sooooo nice!
• We had a larger group that split up a lot during the day. It was fun to get back to the resort at night and pull up the MM photos to see what everyone had been up to during the day.
• We got well over 200 photos and over half of those would be what I would consider great. Maybe a quarter were average. And very few were just so-so.
• Magic Shots are super fun.
  
• Ride photos included.

We will buy it for any future trips, even if the cost goes up. We felt like it was a great value and I could justify even paying a bit more for it if I needed to.

 

[OhanaBreadPudding]

So worth it. We treated it like mini photoshoot AT LEAST once a day. Just tell the photographer that you want a lot of poses and just switch family members, do group shots, just the kids, etc. sometimes the kids would be fussy so we would do some pics of just my husband and I. It's awesome and so nice to have us all in the pics.

 

[emij]

My favorite part of it is the character interaction pics! Tell the photographer before your turn that you have the memory maker and would like a ton of pictures. They will document the whole interaction and I can just watch and enjoy, but still have documentation of the amazement on faces as they first go up to a favorite character! I like these pictures even more than the posed one's.

 

[emij]

And no, there were no issues with the split stay.

 

[TXWAC]

Would not go without it. It is the only way I get to be in the pictures. Even works at the water parks. Guy standing in the middle of the lazy river. One of the best shots of the trip and it would have never happened with our own camera.

 

[quagmire0]

For those that are moderate to heavy 'touring planners', did you feel like you were able to really take advantage of this?

 

[rideswithchrist]

We used our own camera, but what I noticed is that they use theirs AND yours so it seemed like more of a hassle. I think for this next trip, we will maybe get it and use our camera for personal in-park photos.
But, I was happy handing our camera over just as well and we only wanted to be in a few as a whole family- we mainly wanted the kids in the pictures.
We took 1000 photos last time, which was just insane so I am getting a smaller SD card this time so we have less pictures.

 

[PurpleKomodo]

For those that are moderate to heavy 'touring planners', did you feel like you were able to really take advantage of this?

Yes. We are what I would consider moderate touring planners. It didn't really take that much time to stop for photos. Even during peak season, there was rarely a wait to get photos taken. And we would have done the meet and greets anyway.