Memory Maker - Yay or Nay

[ChelleFeegan]

the first two years I went to Disney I wasn't interested at all in MM, now I'm contemplating... Is it really worth it? I don't take s good camera with me to the parks, just the trusty iPhone, and we get lots of "selfies" for the three of us and I snap away merrily when DD9 visits the characters...

What does MM actually offer? You get the SDMT video and ToT don't you? Do you get ride photos? What about those they take at the end of the crush n gusher coaster, the photographers hand out little cards each time you come off, can they be added or do you need to pay separately? How long are the photos "up" for online? Do I need to download them all?

Sorry for all the questions but I trust the DIS for honesty

 

[kmn952]

You get all the ride/water park photos!

We love it because it gets everyone in the photo. Magic shots are fun too!

You do get the videos from mine train and ToT.

You will have to download them. It's cool and lets you add boarders and stuff

It's a great value for us!

 

[Malela9]

This is the one Disney souvenir that I must have. We will be purchasing ours next week. I usually get $300 worth of pictures on average! Go for it!

 

[PoohsFan1]

This is a definite YAY for us . In fact, DH won't even let us go on our trip without purchasing it before hand. We love it because we all get to be in the pictures, not just 3/4 of us (either DH or I will be out of the picture if we take it ourselves), and we love the fact that we get to have ride photos, and some of our restaurant photos are added on too (we tend to do a lot of character meals, so they will put the family photo on the photo pass). My DH is so obsessed with Photopass (yes, I said obsessed) that the kids groan every time he wants to stop and get a picture, they are fine with it on the first part of our trip, but when it is getting towards the end, there is a lot of moaning and groaning . But in the end, the pictures all turn out great and the girls and I have a fun time editing the pictures and adding the boarders to them

 

[Jadyreen1282]

Buy it early for the discount. Get every magic picture you can. Go on rides multiple times making different face each time.

 

[LMN]

It's a definite yes for us- each trip! It is the only way to get the entire family into the picture (other than bothering strangers to take the photo for you). These photos tend to be the only family photos we ever take as a family so I treasure them. Last trip the Olaf Magic Shot was new but only a few photopass photogs were doing them. I would ask each photog that I ran across whether or not they could do the Olaf Magic Shot and the kids thought I was being ridiculous but I got my shot before our trip was over! And the shot turned out great and I love it! Great memories!

 

[MataHari22]

Yay! I got it for the first time last year and I liked it so much that I purchased it again for this trip. We had a lot of really nice photos and I made awesome scrapbooks out of them. Funny story, in 2013 my friend that I was traveling with told me not to get Memory Maker, it was too expensive and that we could just pass the cameras back and forth between us. Well, what I didn't know, is that she was horrible at taking photos. I am not kidding. So bad that at HS we were on the street with the NYC backdrop, and I asked her to take a photo of me in front of it and when she passed me back the camera, I looked and I was nowhere in the photo! She didn't just cut off my head or arm or something, I wasn't in there at all. Needless to say, we laugh about it now, but I wasn't very happy that trip because I have no good photos of myself that vacation. She has tons of outstanding ones I took of her. Lol.

If you purchase it, do it early, so that you get the $30 discount. You will get a card, or if you are staying on site, and get a Magic Band, your MM will be linked to that. With the MB, your band is scanned after each Photopass photographer takes your picture and with the rides, you don't have to do anything, all photos and ride videos go right to your MM. If you only have the card, I believe that you will have to scan the card after each attraction. You will not get anything for 7DMT, because there is no place to scan for that one.

If you stop at all the major Photopass Photographers you see, ride a lot of the attractions that have photos, do character meet and greets, and ask for Magic Shots, you should definitely get your money's worth.

Here is a post on all the Magic Shots:

http://capturingmagic.me/photopass-magic-shots

 

[AmMeinOh]

I didn't get it the first few times we went, but this last time, I decided to get it. it was worth it for us. We do a lot of character meals so we got all those pics included as well as all our ride pics. I bought it early so it was "cheaper". But I would do it again.

 

[ColoradoDis]

This is one of our must dos (and I have a great camera with me all the time). I think it's worth the money - especially if you pre-pay for it. I've come to realize that my favorite memories are brought back with photos. Love seeing my kids grow up through these photos (some of which we get in the same place every trip).

Also, before the ride photos were added, we used to buy several each trip. I love that we get all of them now - even the funny ride photos where I can never seem to be looking in the direction of the camera (even though everyone else is!).

Go ahead and buy it - you won't regret it.

 

[Monykalyn]

We had it last year and this year-the videos are nice, but this year they have also added some "stock" shots of characters, and we had scene rides from HM (we had a pic by PP in front of HM and the scenes from the ride are there with that pic) and same thing with PotC(not not ride photos, but actual photos from some scenes in the ride that people always try to take a flash picture of). We did SWW this year and even had some SW rebels characters "magic shot" into a picture (very cool for us SW geeks). Also the Photographers with the meet and greets will start shooting when you walk up so they capture a lot of interaction between you and the characters not just the standard pose.

Also ditto riding multiple times and planning for the ride photo-we did that on EE last year-had the people around us doing it too - this year I think we have 5 ToT photos and videos...

 

[Mouse of Mystery]

Yes! er... Yay!

We never got any shots at character meals like others have said (except Cinderella at CRT), but maybe we did different meals. We got tons of photos from character meets though, and we stopped for quite a few whenever we saw a Photopass photographer in the park. My only regret is that we didn't stop for more -- it was hard to get the kids to stop when they got tired! However, we ended up with tons of magic shots (sometimes you get lucky and a photographer will knock out 4 or 5 of them for you in one stop! We got lots of character M&G, videos, rides, and Enchanted Tales with Belle. We were very happy with the number of shots and many were of good quality. Best of all we were all in the shots.

 

[BudgieMama]

A definite YAY for us.

My Scrooge of a husband voted it the best value add on we did for our trip last year. 2 adults, travelling for 7 days. We came home with over 300 photos, and 99% of them are great photos- much better than we'd have got giving our camera to someone. We loved all the ride photos too, although we would NEVER have paid for a single one if we bought them individually!

It was top of my list for next year, but Disney are throwing it in for free for us so that's a big bonus.

 

[Nancyg56]

We are a group of 9 this trip, and even though every one of us, minurs the two little girls will be armed to the teeth with cameras and camera phones, we ordered MM. I wanted to be sure that we all have great shots of the entire group, and that we will not need to rely on the kindness of strangers to take a pictue of us. I also really want to enjoy the kids and their interactions, and not worry about taking the perfect picture.

 

[aretha30]

We've gotten MM the last several trips and won't go without again. We find so much value in being able to capture numerous family shots or get the photographer to get the boys together or individual magic shots that we treasure. The ride photos are great and we are looking forward to the videos that have been added since our trip last year. We can ride Buzz 10 times in a trip and we have the pictures from each ride! We stop at photographers when we see them and have gotten great candid shots from meet and greets so we come back from each vacation with hundreds of pictures. MM is worth the expense for all the memories you capture!

 

[Parker Clan]

Another yay here! The ride photos and magic shots are amazing. Plus I love how they are yours forever once downloaded. Like a PP mentioned, the borders, designs, added wording is great- I made three beautiful canvas prints from CVS with mine from last year. What a great keepsake! Plus I crack up at the ToT video whenever I watch it. Also I made sure to stop at every photo pass photographer & feel like I got my money's worth!

 

[brooke789]

My husband is a photographer. He is a real photographer as opposed to the people behind the cameras at WDW and has a nicer camera. So, we haven't purchased MM before. We're planning to this trip for magic shots and ride photos and then we'll get a direct comparison between the WDW photogs and DH's pics.

Last visit most of them just stood their with tehir jaw hanging open while my husband was taking pics even though I had the little card to save our pics. haha. One even decided to just take pics of DH instead of the kids and characters.

 

[Mom2Stitch]

Jumping on board with a great big YAY!!!! Last year was our first trip using it. I purchased because I was taking my DGS,7 and I knew that we were doing lots of meet and greets and character meals. Just for those alone it was worth the price I paid, but I got more than I was expecting. The candid shots are both heartfelt and hilarious with the character meets. I was also surprised at how willing DH was to stop to get our pics taken. Up until last year we had so few pictures of just me and him together, now I have tons in our favorite place in the world. And like other posters, these are my favorite souvieniers and the only place we have a family picture made.

 

[ChelleFeegan]

I think I've made up my mind and it's a firm yay!

Question - in regards of ride photos, do I need to go up to the counter each time, or as we have MB will they automatically update?

Thanks everyone for your help.

 

[BudgieMama]

They should link automatically, @ChelleFeegan - ours all did. Some people report glitches and not getting them, but if you know roughly when you rode, Disney seem to be able to find them (unless they've been censored, as sometimes happens... I have sympathy for anyone missing their SDMT video from a couple of weeks ago because my SIL's top slid down during the ride!!)

 

[Stitch808]

I have to say Yay. The MM is the best value at Disney as long as you take a lot of pictures. All the ride photos should automatically link, but there are photo kiosks at the end of the ride that you can tap to link your pictures. The kiosks is for the people with only RFID cards. The only ride without the kiosks is 7DMT.