Photo CDs

[Kurby]

you would think on a money stand point they would love to offer a cd.

how much does it cost to print all those photos and how many get tossed out - 80% 75% vs only printing a cd once it's ordered at the end of the cruise -

it would cost pennys to print a cd vs over $1 per photo once you take into accout all the photo's that go in the garbage.

 

[joseph'smom]

Everything that I have read/heard indicates that for the 3 night cruises it is $269.95, for the 4 night cruises it is $299.95, and for the 7 night cruises it is $399.95.

Okay, that makes sense then...still, for 3 nights they probably took at least 75 pics of us. Of course, we took a LOT with characters...The formal pics were fantastic and it's worth $269 to have them to make copies. I din't buy the CD but now I wish I did b/c I spent $160 on pics and had to give up some I really wanted...

 

[Squirrley]

Okay, that makes sense then...still, for 3 nights they probably took at least 75 pics of us. Of course, we took a LOT with characters...The formal pics were fantastic and it's worth $269 to have them to make copies. I din't buy the CD but now I wish I did b/c I spent $160 on pics and had to give up some I really wanted...

Did they give you the option to buy at the end of cruise after seeing how many Photos you had taken or do you need to buy at the 1st of the cruise?
I have 2 staterooms & if they have both staterooms connected on the cruise cd, it might be worth it.

 

[joycsk]

Ok. Here is what I've learned so far:

1) I bought the CD. It made sense to my family. We were 3 linked cabins and could get all of the photos. However, 95% of our photos were of our main cabin. The grandparent cabins were really only in group shots of all 8 of us, and a few of grandparents and grandkids.

2) The bigggest single 'combo' package of pictures that Shutters offers is $299 for 20 6x8s, and 15 8x10s. We had about 75-80 pictures of us in total. The cd made sense from that standpoint.

3) Personally, I don't much care for the borders, so that didn't matter to me.

4) Shutters still prints up all the pictures, so that they can sell them _with_ borders, so there is still a LOT of waste. BUT - Shutters uses your key card to do MOST of the matching to your stateroom. On our last day, some CC photos and our Palo photos did not make it onto our account. At 10:45 - after 'Til We Meet Again - I went straight to Shutters, checked the kiosk, then found the paper photos that I needed to add to the CD and took them to the desk. The Shutters CM took the numbers from the backs of the photos and put them on a ticket to get added to our CD.

5) CDs may be ordered at almost any time during the cruise but the MUST be ordered the night before you disembark. A woman tried to order one at 6:30 this morning and was told it was too late. CDs will NOT be ready for pickup until the morning of disembarkation, so plan an early Shutters run if you are purchasing.

6) CD prices vary according to the length of the cruise as stated earlier - I have to guess that the transatlantic, baltic and med cruise prices will be higher.

7) Shutters does have some price incentives - but I really don't know how they work. A fellow disboarder was able to get some smaller size photos (3x5s, I'm pretty sure) made by Shutters after purchasing a package. Another passenger told me that they had purchased Several photo packages and were buying nearly all of the pictures and then decided to add the CD as well. After Shutters totalled their packages with the CS 50% discount, their CD was essentially free. (However, we are taking big $$ on the photos.)

8) Final thoughts: Yes, some pictures were not keepers, but I still think we _could_ have purchased more that 35 - and the ability to size pictures without scanning them means a lot to me. From the same kind of time standpoint, I LOVED knowing that I was going to purchase the CD. While we checked the photo kiosk 1x/day or so, I wasn't spending 30+ minutes/day in Shutters trying to find _our_ pictures, trying to decide which ones to buy and which ones to toss. Finding new pictures that I liked more and then trying to toss older ones. The decision to buy the CD, while expensive, was absolutely liberating for me. We certainly could have taken may more pictures, but we spent our first 4 day cruise running from character op to character op, and I didn't want to do that this time. We got several good pictures, and I'm pleased about that.

Yes, the $$ are significant. However, the photographers and their gear are really quite good. I felt so bad as I watched the lifestyle photographer work. She spent nearly 3 hours, jumping and jumping. And her ability to capture the kids in mid-air also impressed the heck out of me. Rather than comparing the CD to what WDW does, I compare it to what it would cost me to buy the pics. Am I over-simplifying? OF course. Is the CD for everyone? Not at all. But if you are considering it, I wanted to say that my overall experience was quite positive.

Best wishes to the future cruisers!

 

[Jessebuggy]

Ok. Here is what I've learned so far:

1) I bought the CD. It made sense to my family. We were 3 linked cabins and could get all of the photos. However, 95% of our photos were of our main cabin. The grandparent cabins were really only in group shots of all 8 of us, and a few of grandparents and grandkids.

2) The bigggest single 'combo' package of pictures that Shutters offers is $299 for 20 6x8s, and 15 8x10s. We had about 75-80 pictures of us in total. The cd made sense from that standpoint.

3) Personally, I don't much care for the borders, so that didn't matter to me.

4) Shutters still prints up all the pictures, so that they can sell them _with_ borders, so there is still a LOT of waste. BUT - Shutters uses your key card to do MOST of the matching to your stateroom. On our last day, some CC photos and our Palo photos did not make it onto our account. At 10:45 - after 'Til We Meet Again - I went straight to Shutters, checked the kiosk, then found the paper photos that I needed to add to the CD and took them to the desk. The Shutters CM took the numbers from the backs of the photos and put them on a ticket to get added to our CD.

5) CDs may be ordered at almost any time during the cruise but the MUST be ordered the night before you disembark. A woman tried to order one at 6:30 this morning and was told it was too late. CDs will NOT be ready for pickup until the morning of disembarkation, so plan an early Shutters run if you are purchasing.

6) CD prices vary according to the length of the cruise as stated earlier - I have to guess that the transatlantic, baltic and med cruise prices will be higher.

7) Shutters does have some price incentives - but I really don't know how they work. A fellow disboarder was able to get some smaller size photos (3x5s, I'm pretty sure) made by Shutters after purchasing a package. Another passenger told me that they had purchased Several photo packages and were buying nearly all of the pictures and then decided to add the CD as well. After Shutters totalled their packages with the CS 50% discount, their CD was essentially free. (However, we are taking big $$ on the photos.)

8) Final thoughts: Yes, some pictures were not keepers, but I still think we _could_ have purchased more that 35 - and the ability to size pictures without scanning them means a lot to me. From the same kind of time standpoint, I LOVED knowing that I was going to purchase the CD. While we checked the photo kiosk 1x/day or so, I wasn't spending 30+ minutes/day in Shutters trying to find _our_ pictures, trying to decide which ones to buy and which ones to toss. Finding new pictures that I liked more and then trying to toss older ones. The decision to buy the CD, while expensive, was absolutely liberating for me. We certainly could have taken may more pictures, but we spent our first 4 day cruise running from character op to character op, and I didn't want to do that this time. We got several good pictures, and I'm pleased about that.

Yes, the $$ are significant. However, the photographers and their gear are really quite good. I felt so bad as I watched the lifestyle photographer work. She spent nearly 3 hours, jumping and jumping. And her ability to capture the kids in mid-air also impressed the heck out of me. Rather than comparing the CD to what WDW does, I compare it to what it would cost me to buy the pics. Am I over-simplifying? OF course. Is the CD for everyone? Not at all. But if you are considering it, I wanted to say that my overall experience was quite positive.

Best wishes to the future cruisers!

I love your post and your breakdown. I would definitely buy the CD. I personally ask Shutters to reprint most of my pics without the borders. We spent $295.00 on our last cruise. The memories are worth it to me and I think the CD will give me more opportunities to share and use the pics.

 

[carmie3377]

Okay, so how much is a CD for a 7 day cruise? Do you get 50% off ALL photos purchased? We are planning on buying Christmas cards and wonder if I would get the 50% off of those if buying the CD.

At first, I thought I wouldn't be interested in the CD but the more I think about it, I may be. It would be great to use some of the photos as gifts for Christmas plus all of our family has been asking us for a family photo. DH and I have been married for almost 14 years and we've never done a professional family photo. Sad, I know.

 

[joycsk]

Okay, so how much is a CD for a 7 day cruise? Do you get 50% off ALL photos purchased? We are planning on buying Christmas cards and wonder if I would get the 50% off of those if buying the CD.

At first, I thought I wouldn't be interested in the CD but the more I think about it, I may be. It would be great to use some of the photos as gifts for Christmas plus all of our family has been asking us for a family photo. DH and I have been married for almost 14 years and we've never done a professional family photo. Sad, I know.

I didn't ask about Xmas cards, so I'm not sure. The CD is $399 for a 7 day cruise. The sign says that you can purchase the pictures from the CD at 50% off. Since Christmas cards aren't 'pictures' per se, my guess is that they would not be included in the 50% off. Then again, it _appears_ that Shutters does haggle some, so maybe you could get a bit of a deal. . .

I'm sure you'll figure out what makes the most sense for your family, but enjoy that family photo!

 

[carmie3377]

I didn't ask about Xmas cards, so I'm not sure. The CD is $399 for a 7 day cruise. The sign says that you can purchase the pictures from the CD at 50% off. Since Christmas cards aren't 'pictures' per se, my guess is that they would not be included in the 50% off. Then again, it _appears_ that Shutters does haggle some, so maybe you could get a bit of a deal. . .

I'm sure you'll figure out what makes the most sense for your family, but enjoy that family photo!

Thank you!!!

 

[parlay]

Alot of really good information. I'm on the fence about buying the CD. We spend about $250 in pictures on the last cruise, so a $400 pricetag isn't appealing to me. But on the other hand since my in-laws cabin is linked to ours, a split cost of $200 is doable. The only problem is that my kids are no longer into getting their pictures taken with the characters - oh the dilemma.

 

[Doingitagain]

I just got off the Magic. We linked staterooms with one other party, and all of our pictures are on one CD (we worked with Shutters right away to make sure it would work that way).

We paid $399.95 for the CD and I am very happy with it. We did poses we never would have paid $$ for, but are fun to have. There are no copyright issues, as long as you don't use them for commercial purposes. It specifically says you can give a copy as a gift to someone (like I am doing for our friends).

Having them electronically will allow me to show slide shows, crop to fit picture frames, etc.

Note that you should stop by the kiosks periodically to "remove" parties who are not part of your group, sometimes the facial recognition picks up others.

Try to swipe your room card whenever you can to get the pictures on your account. They did this for all the formal portraits, not for the casual "around the ship" or in the restaurants.

If pictures are missing, do it the "old way" by finding the printed copy in Shutters and give it to a CM with your room number.

 

[Doingitagain]

Alot of really good information. I'm on the fence about buying the CD. We spend about $250 in pictures on the last cruise, so a $400 pricetag isn't appealing to me. But on the other hand since my in-laws cabin is linked to ours, a split cost of $200 is doable. The only problem is that my kids are no longer into getting their pictures taken with the characters - oh the dilemma.

DD20 and DS17 didn't have any character pictures, but DH had one with Snow White! Knowing I was buying the CD got us to do a bunch of fun photos!

 

[ShootingStarMom2]

Ok, I flipped through most of the 7 pages here and see 2 cabins linked worked fine. We have a huge family cruise coming up (18 of us with 4 differ cabins). We did the cd on land at WDW and just used one account with all the photo cards and got one cd. Will they really let us combine cabins with this many? DMIL made the reservation, so we're all under one. This would be awesome for us.

 

[so_oregon]

the CDs include the formal night pics, right?

 

[joycsk]

Ok, I flipped through most of the 7 pages here and see 2 cabins linked worked fine. We have a huge family cruise coming up (18 of us with 4 differ cabins). We did the cd on land at WDW and just used one account with all the photo cards and got one cd. Will they really let us combine cabins with this many? DMIL made the reservation, so we're all under one. This would be awesome for us.

We were a group of 8 in 3 cabins with a linked reservation. It was successful for us, but as I mentioned the majority of the pictures came from just our cabin.

I will say that some of the Shutters staff seemed more knowledgable than others. I went the first day to ask about three linked cabins and I got a kinda blank stare. It did end up working out fine.

 

[joycsk]

the CDs include the formal night pics, right?

Formal night, Palo, lifestyle portraits, CC beach pictures - it was all available! Some of my favorites are of my kids with the animated Tinkerbell or Captain Hook photoshopped in! (You can get a picture with Hook in a sword fight or with Tink posing in your hand or on your shoulder! - I wasn't certain if those would come through, but they did! - Also the pictures they take of kids jumping up in mid-air are fabulous!)

 

[lbgraves]

That cinches it for me! I want the Tink photo and if that is included we will definitely get the CD next cruise..which will probably cost more since it is the TA but there were so many more special photos on the PC repo last year it was hard to choose and we bought 2 packages.

 

[gismo1554]

That cinches it for me! I want the Tink photo and if that is included we will definitely get the CD next cruise..which will probably cost more since it is the TA but there were so many more special photos on the PC repo last year it was hard to choose and we bought 2 packages.

I may end up getting it if we have the 3 rooms linked as we may save money but depends on the cost. On the last TA we only spent around $200 on photos as most weren't very nice - I blame the boat rocking so much on Captains Gala night lol

 

[ShootingStarMom2]

We were a group of 8 in 3 cabins with a linked reservation. It was successful for us, but as I mentioned the majority of the pictures came from just our cabin.

I will say that some of the Shutters staff seemed more knowledgable than others. I went the first day to ask about three linked cabins and I got a kinda blank stare. It did end up working out fine.

Thanks! I've see that stare before!

 

[QJ411]

I agree with the handful of posters here - I would totally go for this CD; $400 IS a lot of money for digital photos, but to me, its the copyrights, the 'hey I didn't think of that shot' candid photo, the rare family portraits, etc. In past sailings, we've spent about $200 at Shutters each time, we had to pick and choose certain shots. If we were able to have the ENTIRE cruise's photos on the CD then that's awesome. I can live without the boarders, I'm a huge Photoshop fan, if I can own the photos outright to retouch anyway I want - it makes me a happy girl!

This sailing, we'll be with BIL (his wife & DS1), and my sister (& her fiance) so between the 3 cabins, I'm really hoping that they have no problems with linking the photos together.

Ok. Here is what I've learned so far:

1) I bought the CD. It made sense to my family. We were 3 linked cabins and could get all of the photos. However, 95% of our photos were of our main cabin. The grandparent cabins were really only in group shots of all 8 of us, and a few of grandparents and grandkids.

2) The bigggest single 'combo' package of pictures that Shutters offers is $299 for 20 6x8s, and 15 8x10s. We had about 75-80 pictures of us in total. The cd made sense from that standpoint.

3) Personally, I don't much care for the borders, so that didn't matter to me.

4) Shutters still prints up all the pictures, so that they can sell them _with_ borders, so there is still a LOT of waste. BUT - Shutters uses your key card to do MOST of the matching to your stateroom. On our last day, some CC photos and our Palo photos did not make it onto our account. At 10:45 - after 'Til We Meet Again - I went straight to Shutters, checked the kiosk, then found the paper photos that I needed to add to the CD and took them to the desk. The Shutters CM took the numbers from the backs of the photos and put them on a ticket to get added to our CD.

5) CDs may be ordered at almost any time during the cruise but the MUST be ordered the night before you disembark. A woman tried to order one at 6:30 this morning and was told it was too late. CDs will NOT be ready for pickup until the morning of disembarkation, so plan an early Shutters run if you are purchasing.

6) CD prices vary according to the length of the cruise as stated earlier - I have to guess that the transatlantic, baltic and med cruise prices will be higher.

7) Shutters does have some price incentives - but I really don't know how they work. A fellow disboarder was able to get some smaller size photos (3x5s, I'm pretty sure) made by Shutters after purchasing a package. Another passenger told me that they had purchased Several photo packages and were buying nearly all of the pictures and then decided to add the CD as well. After Shutters totalled their packages with the CS 50% discount, their CD was essentially free. (However, we are taking big $$ on the photos.)

8) Final thoughts: Yes, some pictures were not keepers, but I still think we _could_ have purchased more that 35 - and the ability to size pictures without scanning them means a lot to me. From the same kind of time standpoint, I LOVED knowing that I was going to purchase the CD. While we checked the photo kiosk 1x/day or so, I wasn't spending 30+ minutes/day in Shutters trying to find _our_ pictures, trying to decide which ones to buy and which ones to toss. Finding new pictures that I liked more and then trying to toss older ones. The decision to buy the CD, while expensive, was absolutely liberating for me. We certainly could have taken may more pictures, but we spent our first 4 day cruise running from character op to character op, and I didn't want to do that this time. We got several good pictures, and I'm pleased about that.

Yes, the $$ are significant. However, the photographers and their gear are really quite good. I felt so bad as I watched the lifestyle photographer work. She spent nearly 3 hours, jumping and jumping. And her ability to capture the kids in mid-air also impressed the heck out of me. Rather than comparing the CD to what WDW does, I compare it to what it would cost me to buy the pics. Am I over-simplifying? OF course. Is the CD for everyone? Not at all. But if you are considering it, I wanted to say that my overall experience was quite positive.

Best wishes to the future cruisers!

THANKS for the awesome breakdown!!!

 

[jbm02]

This sailing, we'll be with BIL (his wife & DS1), and my sister (& her fiance) so between the 3 cabins, I'm really hoping that they have no problems with linking the photos together.

Just a word of warning - we had 4 linked cabins on the Aug 15 cruise. After reading all the info on the DIS about linked cabins and the ability to include all the pictures on the CD, I called DCL to verify it and was told that there would be no problem. Just to confirm it, one of the other linked cabins also called DCL and was told the same thing. So I went to Shutters as soon as it opened the first day of thecruise to give all the cabin numbers for our linked rooms and advise that we planned to purchase a single CD for all 4 rooms. The perplexed person at the register told me that the asst manager would call me that night. No call on Saturday. No call on Sunday. On Sunday night I went to Shutters to make sure everything was arranged. I was told that I would need to speak with the manager of Shutter, Shane. I again left my name and cabin number. To people from 2 of the other cabins also stopped by and were told to wait to hear from Shane. On Monday I spoke with Shane and he said he NEVER HEARD of people being able to put more than one stateroom on a CD but that he would call shoreshide and find out whether it could be done. No response on Tuesday. We went to Shutters and spent another 30 minutes or so trying to find out the status of the CD. No response on wednesday. went back to Shutters and spent at least another 45 minutes trying to find out the status of the CD. (This was time away from our families!! Starting to get a bit upset here). On Thursday we were told he was 'still working on it, keep posing for lots of pictures..." This was another 45 minute conversation - more time away from families - and we told Shane that we needed an answer soon because we had only one more day and we still had no pictures picked out. Plus, our pictures were scattered across 4 rooms - some had our kids in them, some had ours plus cousins, some were on our stateroom but we weren't in them, etc etc. Finally, on Friday he told us that it couldn't be done and that the best he could do would be to offer us the $299 picture plan plus a small discount. This was on Friday, after business hours in the States. We really felt like he strung us along the whole week and added anxiety to the vacation because he wouldn't give us an answer til Friday. My DH - who had not gotten involved at all up til that point - then came looking for me because this last conversation occurred while I was supposed to be at dinner and another couple was supposed to be at Palo - instead, we were still trying to figure out what to do ith the picture CD. Had we been told on the first, second or even thiord day that the single CD was not an option we would have saved valuable vacation time and stress and been able to leisurely pick out the pictures we wanted. now we were told that we would have to pick out the pictures we wanted on the last day of the cruise. Anyway, my DH went to Guest Services and explained the situation. (The wives had already been there but had been referred back to Shutters. DH stood at Guest Services til an officer was available to speak with us). The officer then went to Shutters and met with Shane. They were not able to resolve the situation the way we had been told ($100 per family for 1 CD) but were able to offer us something better than the $300 package.
Another set of linked reservations (both were travelling in cat 3s) were offered nothing - $400 for one CD per stateroom, take it or leave it.
All in all, please don't count on a single CD being available for linked reservations. The amount of time we spent at Shutters - and speaking with Guest Services - was pretty substantial and negatively impacted our cruise. It was the only negative thing we've ever encountered with DCL. If anyone also calls to verify this infor with DCL, make sure that you get the name and title of the person who confirms the information. Had we done that things might (??) have been resolved sooner.
This is in no way a ding on the photographers. Grace (who does the white background pictures) is absolutely amazing at what she is able to capture. And considering the cost of a private sitting and pictures at home, the price is steep but might even be a little cheaper than is available in our area of NY.
Just wanted to make sure that no one is caught unawares.