Memory Maker.. Yes or No?!?

[jliucci]

Hi Everyone!

DH & I are taking our 2 yr old on her first Disney Vacation in November and I am debating purchasing the Memory Maker. I have never purchased this service before. Does anyone recommend the Memory Maker or can you provide insite on how it works? Is it worth the money $169 (advanced purchase)? Are there normally long lines for the Disney photographers?

Thanks!

 

[1st*toright]

My DH is a great photographer, but we still sprung for memory maker and I'm really glad we did. We didn't seek out photopass photographers, but stopped and did photos many times because we saw a photographer standing there with no line. The magic shots are really fun, and the ride photos and videos are only available through Disney, so we got a lot of pictures/videos we otherwise wouldn't have. It was great to be able to just enjoy the character meet & greets, rather than being worried about getting pictures, and its AWESOME to have family photos with all of us (instead of lots with DH missing because he is the one shooting). Some of the photopass shots are not that great, but we definitely got a lot of value out of it in our week-long trip. DH gave me a book for Christmas- its a mixture of his photos and photopass photos. The kids love revisiting the memories!

 

[Mom2Stitch]

Love, love, love MM and wouldn't go without it! I have some of the best pictures of my family from them. Ride pics are always so much fun too.

 

[CampbellzSoup]

2 year old? Yes definitely memories are a lifetime Souvenir. For what their worth the PhotoPass photography is pretty good and their are plenty of photo ops.

 

[lillyshula]

We love getting Memory Maker for our Disney vacations and coudn't imagine not having it. The waits for a photographer were never longer than 10 minutes for us and most of the time there were only one or two families in front of us. I love having the ability to have the whole family in the picture without having to ask a stranger if they could please take a picture for us. Plus the added benefit of getting the ride and character meet and greet photos is great. We have some awesome pictures that we wouldn't have gotten any other way. I do not think you will be disappointed if you go ahead and purchase the Memory Maker.

 

[Tomh]

We have purchased the Memory Maker several times. The advantage is you get all of the on ride photos, character meet and greets (sometimes the lines are long, but sometimes you stumble upon one that it just forming, and can get a picture in just a few minutes) and family photos that include everyone in the family. Those family photos are more than worth the price for me, as I am usually the one manning the camera, so without Memory Maker, I either have to hand my camera to strangers to get our picture, or I get left out of them all.

The way it works is you created a My Disney Experience account for everyone in your traveling group, and link them all together through the friends and family. Once in the parks, you can have photos taken by any Photopass photographer you see. Ride photos and videos should link to your account through your Magic Band (if you see a wall of video screens with photos on your way out, take a moment and tap your magic band to claim your photo just to be sure you get it) any character meals where photos are taken will also be included. There are some fun Magic Shots that might also be included by certain Photopass Photographers.

You can view, and edit your photos using your My Disney Experience app on your mobile device, or by logging into My Disney Experience on the Disney World website. Your pictures will remain available on the website for 45 days from the day they were taken, so you should have plenty of time to make edits after you return home from your trip. Once you have made all of the edits you want, you can then download all of your photos. The download comes with a license that allows you to have them printed for your own use.

Over the years, I have used many of my photos for screen savers, and desktop wall papers on my computer, my phone, and my tablet. I also had a custom calendar printed this year through Vista Print using some of my Photopass pictures (and some of my own pictures as well.)

I hope this gives you a solid idea of what Memory Maker is. If you have further questions, feel free to ask. There will be a new thread here on the DIS soon, covering all of the important information about Photopass and Memory Maker.

 

[AFwifelife]

We always buy it. It’s nice being able to not worry about having to pass phones and cameras around and the photographers always do a great job with lots of shots. It’s perfect with little kids too who sometimes don’t have much patience.

 

[Karen46]

We used it on our last trip and it works great. I agree having three children, memory maker would have been great. You can be in the pictures as well. They captured great photos and the memories can not be replaced. Seek out some photographers and the others will just be lucky. The photographers we saw worked great with the kids. So attentive.

 

[DisDreaming4116]

Absolutely I'd recommend you do it! It's so nice to have pictures of your whole group together and many of the PhotoPass photographers are a lot of fun.

 

[Tomh]

The reason for Memory Maker is this:



And this:



And maybe this:



But, perhaps, mostly this:

 

[Etch]

We didn't get it last time and ended up regretting it!

We got home and saw all the fantastic pictures linked on MDE. We ending up buying a lot of them and it cost more then what it would have if we had purchased MM ahead of time.

Oh, and that was with us making no effort to have pics taken by the photographers.

 

[kniquy]

I think it depends on how long your trip is. If you are only going for a short trip then you might not get your moneys worth. A longer trip gives plenty of opportunities to get great pictures. I definitely think it is worth it and love the pictures that we had taken and they are the highlight of our photo book. There are ride photos too, but i am not sure which rides a 2 yo can go on that have the ride pictures. I think they are more of the roller coasters (mine train, space mt, splash etc).

My main benefit of the pictures is that i am actually in the pictures -- I am the main photographer in the group so rarely am in the pictures.

 

[disneydreamer1980]

Yes! It’s so worth it! And with it you won’t have to worry about losing storage space for pictures,you’ll get all the ride photos and magic shots, it’s great.

 

[KenHutch]

We always get it and its always been worth it. The magic shots alone make it a good deal. When my daughter was 5 we did the one with Tinker Bell in your hand. She told me there was nothing in her hand but when I printed that picture she spent several hours looking at her hand and then the picture.

 

[hllb]

This is the first time we've gotten it and I'm glad we did. I'm actually in the pictures LOL. We had over 700 pictures (one week trip), including some ride videos (didn't know they did that!) and some magic shots. Very fun.

I have never seen that magic shot with the ghost driving the carriage! Jealous! We got one with a single hitchhiking ghost though.

 

[arminnie]

Mine came with my AP. We went the first week of December and found the photo pass lines to be ridiculously long. I think I got 3 pictures outside of ride pictures. Maybe I would have been willing to spend 20+ minutes in line if I’d paid extra for it.

 

[KenHutch]

This is the first time we've gotten it and I'm glad we did. I'm actually in the pictures LOL. We had over 700 pictures (one week trip), including some ride videos (didn't know they did that!) and some magic shots. Very fun.

I have never seen that magic shot with the ghost driving the carriage! Jealous! We got one with a single hitchhiking ghost though.

800 is pretty good thou. We stay for 10 to 12 days every trip so my goal is always 1000+ and its the only way for me to get into a picture as well. In my case asking the girls mother or stepfather to take a picture of us is a lost cause.

 

[Tomh]

This is the first time we've gotten it and I'm glad we did. I'm actually in the pictures LOL. We had over 700 pictures (one week trip), including some ride videos (didn't know they did that!) and some magic shots. Very fun.

I have never seen that magic shot with the ghost driving the carriage! Jealous! We got one with a single hitchhiking ghost though.

The ghost driving the carriage was a special shot during MNSSHP. It was a few years ago, so I'm not 100% sure they still do it.

 

[hllb]

The ghost driving the carriage was a special shot during MNSSHP. It was a few years ago, so I'm not 100% sure they still do it.

Well, at least we didn't just miss it. Very cool shot!

 

[hllb]

Mine came with my AP. We went the first week of December and found the photo pass lines to be ridiculously long. I think I got 3 pictures outside of ride pictures. Maybe I would have been willing to spend 20+ minutes in line if I’d paid extra for it.

We did skip the long lines, but there were a lot of times when it was only 2 or 3 families deep. I can see December being much harder to do it. The only one we chose to skip that I wanted to do was Rapunzel's lantern shot. WAY too long of a line for that.