heybets30
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Mar 25, 2010
- Messages
- 453
So – we went to Disneyland/DCA only Thursday & Friday last week. We skipped Wednesday due to the rain. This is our daughter’s 15th trip, our son’s 13th, so we were ok cutting it short to 2 days. We entertained ourselves at the pool and sloshed around Downtown Disney instead. I'm in the minority about PhotoPass+ being discontinued as an all-trip thing. We only ever go 2-3 days at a time, so I just put it in the just another souvenir bucket for costs. Oh well. I can see how others hate this new option going more than 2-3 days. Then it would hit me harder.
Anyway – I’m going to detail, step-by-step, how the new photopass one-day purchase thingy works, as I used it and thought the interface was good and horrible all at the same time. There are many components which are NOT intuitive. I say this as a very tech-savvy person too.
We arrived at the park at opening Thursday. We headed straight to get our Radiator Springs FPs. I rode ToT with my daughter – bummed that our ride photo “got lost in the abyss of time,” according to the CM – the ride cameras were not operating for about 30 minutes or so. So no photo number to even keep track of. Hubby rode it shortly thereafter, and took a screenshot of their ride photo with his phone – with the number CLEARLY legible. We headed straight over to the Disney Meet & Greet where we met Pluto (missed Minnie by ONE family!) Oh well. We got a Photopass card from the photog, and we used that the entire 2 days to hand to other photogs. Once I had the photopass card, I opened up the iPhone Disneyland App – selected the “Link Photos” option at the top of the screen and scanned the QR code.
Within about 20 minutes, our Pluto pictures had all been loaded! Pretty cool. The one thing I’ll warn with the phone app – the images are a bit cropped. So, if you look on a PC, you’ll see the entire photo. Our loaded photos had quite a few heads cut off. Rest assured, it is the app preview feature, NOT the photo itself!
We busted our behinds to make sure we took advantage that first day and hit up every photographer we could. We used the same card, so our photos all loaded within about 15-45 minutes of them being taken. That was a GREAT feature - get photo taken, see it live in less than an hour. I’m using an iPhone 6S – brand new, 64gb, I had no issues with the app running slowly, or photos loading poorly. The app seems to be very well sympatico with iOS in this regards. Didn't drain battery, either.
So – the ride photos. Here’s where I felt like an IDIOT. Take a picture of your ride photo. If it goes off the screen too quickly, there are still CMs who can pull it up for you to take a pic of the number. Here’s where it is NOT intuitive how to add ride photos. I had a very nice CM show me where to enter the ride codes.
Adding Ride Photos to the DL App:
1. Get your ride number from the screens. All will start with a letter. You NEED that letter. (R for Radiator Springs, M for Hyperspace Mountain, C for CA Screamin, T for ToT, S for Splash Mountain).
2. Within the App – go to “link Photos”. At the bottom of this screen, select “Scan to Link Your Photos”. See? Not intuitive to enter a ride code.
3. In the “Link Your Photos” Screen, there is the option “Enter a PhotoPassId." Another screen opens, and you’ll see the very faint text … “Enter the ID number”. You enter the code ON TOP of this very faint gray text. Don’t make the mistake I made and try to enter it underneath – in the spot where it looks like you enter it, that’s not it. Type directly over the text. Then, press submit or Go. Within a minute or so, the picture will load!!
If you haven’t read it across the boards – there are SUPER fun 60th photo opps all around both parks. I am SOOOOOO bummed we didn’t catch the Haunted Mansion one. That would’ve been AWESOME. We caught it at nighttime, unfortunately, on our way to Splash Mountain. Too dark for a good photo.
Ok – now the fun begins. Let’s say you are back home, you’ve loaded your ride photos – all your photos from cards have been added and you want to purchase and download.
NOTE – some of the photos online show the wrong date. Our ride photos that we took on 2/19 – appear as 2/20. They show with the correct date on the app. Oops to the technology behind it all! I called to get guidance through downloading, because it is NOT CLEAR AT ALL how to do it.
Purchasing/Downloading your photos:
Log into the Disneyland site using your account. Go to Things to Do-->”Capture Special Moments with Disney PhotoPass”. Click on “Additional Products” at the top-right. You’ll see where you can purchase a one day option. You can also purchase the extension here. I purchased a one-day download option, $39. I received a confirmation code, then a confirmation email. Go back to your photos. I had to keep going through Things to Do--> Capture Special moments to get to my photos. View my Gallery wasn't working nicely this morning.
You’ll see ALL your photos with the DisneyPhotopass watermark across all of them. To DOWNLOAD all from one day – select ANY photo from the day you want. Mine was 2/18 – so I selected one photo. Click on the photo and it will open in the screen. Scroll down as far as you can on that photo's page … the option to “Activate” will be there in green. Once you select that button, ALL photos from 2/18 were “Activated”. I then saw that the watermark was removed.
I want to download all photos together, so I go back to View my gallery to ANY photo taken on 2/18 – remember, they look like real photos, no watermarks now. Hover above it with your mouse until you see a White circle. Click in that white circle. You’ll see that it turns green with a checkmark. You’ll also notice that ALL photos from that one day have white circles now. You can either select only a few photos from that day to download, OR, you can scroll back up to the top of the page and select “Select All Visible Media”. Checking this option will pull ALL photos from that one day. You’ll see them populating next to the download button.
TIPS – Internet Explorer was kinda funny. Chrome worked fine. Make sure you OK pop-ups to be allowed, you’ll need to for the download. My download of 60 photos took maybe 15 seconds into a .zip file. The file is saved to “Downloads” on your computer. Be careful – you may get multiple .zip files. My photos were split into 2 .zips. Glad I checked!
Hope this was helpful! If you have any questions, I’m happy to answer them!!
On a side note – there was also a fun “upside down” CA Screamin’ photo op behind King Triton’s carousel, and in Bug’s Life there was one too. They did some magic shots for the kids at the main entrance to DL – Tink shot, balloons. We didn’t seek out any other magic shots. Kylo Ren photo shoot with Chase Disney Visa – AWESOME! My 6-year old dressed as Captain Phasma. The CMs were totally in character, and Kylo Ren gave all kinds of instruction to my son about what he needs from him to do to keep the First Order in line. It was awesome. Chewbacca was also fantastic – quite a hugger J
Anyway – I’m going to detail, step-by-step, how the new photopass one-day purchase thingy works, as I used it and thought the interface was good and horrible all at the same time. There are many components which are NOT intuitive. I say this as a very tech-savvy person too.
We arrived at the park at opening Thursday. We headed straight to get our Radiator Springs FPs. I rode ToT with my daughter – bummed that our ride photo “got lost in the abyss of time,” according to the CM – the ride cameras were not operating for about 30 minutes or so. So no photo number to even keep track of. Hubby rode it shortly thereafter, and took a screenshot of their ride photo with his phone – with the number CLEARLY legible. We headed straight over to the Disney Meet & Greet where we met Pluto (missed Minnie by ONE family!) Oh well. We got a Photopass card from the photog, and we used that the entire 2 days to hand to other photogs. Once I had the photopass card, I opened up the iPhone Disneyland App – selected the “Link Photos” option at the top of the screen and scanned the QR code.
Within about 20 minutes, our Pluto pictures had all been loaded! Pretty cool. The one thing I’ll warn with the phone app – the images are a bit cropped. So, if you look on a PC, you’ll see the entire photo. Our loaded photos had quite a few heads cut off. Rest assured, it is the app preview feature, NOT the photo itself!
We busted our behinds to make sure we took advantage that first day and hit up every photographer we could. We used the same card, so our photos all loaded within about 15-45 minutes of them being taken. That was a GREAT feature - get photo taken, see it live in less than an hour. I’m using an iPhone 6S – brand new, 64gb, I had no issues with the app running slowly, or photos loading poorly. The app seems to be very well sympatico with iOS in this regards. Didn't drain battery, either.
So – the ride photos. Here’s where I felt like an IDIOT. Take a picture of your ride photo. If it goes off the screen too quickly, there are still CMs who can pull it up for you to take a pic of the number. Here’s where it is NOT intuitive how to add ride photos. I had a very nice CM show me where to enter the ride codes.
Adding Ride Photos to the DL App:
1. Get your ride number from the screens. All will start with a letter. You NEED that letter. (R for Radiator Springs, M for Hyperspace Mountain, C for CA Screamin, T for ToT, S for Splash Mountain).
2. Within the App – go to “link Photos”. At the bottom of this screen, select “Scan to Link Your Photos”. See? Not intuitive to enter a ride code.
3. In the “Link Your Photos” Screen, there is the option “Enter a PhotoPassId." Another screen opens, and you’ll see the very faint text … “Enter the ID number”. You enter the code ON TOP of this very faint gray text. Don’t make the mistake I made and try to enter it underneath – in the spot where it looks like you enter it, that’s not it. Type directly over the text. Then, press submit or Go. Within a minute or so, the picture will load!!
If you haven’t read it across the boards – there are SUPER fun 60th photo opps all around both parks. I am SOOOOOO bummed we didn’t catch the Haunted Mansion one. That would’ve been AWESOME. We caught it at nighttime, unfortunately, on our way to Splash Mountain. Too dark for a good photo.
Ok – now the fun begins. Let’s say you are back home, you’ve loaded your ride photos – all your photos from cards have been added and you want to purchase and download.
NOTE – some of the photos online show the wrong date. Our ride photos that we took on 2/19 – appear as 2/20. They show with the correct date on the app. Oops to the technology behind it all! I called to get guidance through downloading, because it is NOT CLEAR AT ALL how to do it.
Purchasing/Downloading your photos:
Log into the Disneyland site using your account. Go to Things to Do-->”Capture Special Moments with Disney PhotoPass”. Click on “Additional Products” at the top-right. You’ll see where you can purchase a one day option. You can also purchase the extension here. I purchased a one-day download option, $39. I received a confirmation code, then a confirmation email. Go back to your photos. I had to keep going through Things to Do--> Capture Special moments to get to my photos. View my Gallery wasn't working nicely this morning.
You’ll see ALL your photos with the DisneyPhotopass watermark across all of them. To DOWNLOAD all from one day – select ANY photo from the day you want. Mine was 2/18 – so I selected one photo. Click on the photo and it will open in the screen. Scroll down as far as you can on that photo's page … the option to “Activate” will be there in green. Once you select that button, ALL photos from 2/18 were “Activated”. I then saw that the watermark was removed.
I want to download all photos together, so I go back to View my gallery to ANY photo taken on 2/18 – remember, they look like real photos, no watermarks now. Hover above it with your mouse until you see a White circle. Click in that white circle. You’ll see that it turns green with a checkmark. You’ll also notice that ALL photos from that one day have white circles now. You can either select only a few photos from that day to download, OR, you can scroll back up to the top of the page and select “Select All Visible Media”. Checking this option will pull ALL photos from that one day. You’ll see them populating next to the download button.
TIPS – Internet Explorer was kinda funny. Chrome worked fine. Make sure you OK pop-ups to be allowed, you’ll need to for the download. My download of 60 photos took maybe 15 seconds into a .zip file. The file is saved to “Downloads” on your computer. Be careful – you may get multiple .zip files. My photos were split into 2 .zips. Glad I checked!
Hope this was helpful! If you have any questions, I’m happy to answer them!!
On a side note – there was also a fun “upside down” CA Screamin’ photo op behind King Triton’s carousel, and in Bug’s Life there was one too. They did some magic shots for the kids at the main entrance to DL – Tink shot, balloons. We didn’t seek out any other magic shots. Kylo Ren photo shoot with Chase Disney Visa – AWESOME! My 6-year old dressed as Captain Phasma. The CMs were totally in character, and Kylo Ren gave all kinds of instruction to my son about what he needs from him to do to keep the First Order in line. It was awesome. Chewbacca was also fantastic – quite a hugger J
