I just used PPP last week. You have to order at least 14 days before your trip. When it arrives, you will get a cd of stock photos, a voucher to turn in at wdw for the PPP card, and a code for the cd. You have 14 days in the parks to use PPP. They will hole punch the date that it is good until. You still have 30 days to claim and 30 days to edit. After you are done editing, add the cd to your cart and put in the code for the cd (it is found in the cd case with the stock cd). It will change the price in your cart to $0. Your cd will arrive shortly.
We were in the parks for 5 days and did no character meals. We did, however, do tons of character meets. We also did Enchanted Tales with Belle and ride photos. On our last day we went to DtD and I went to the Photopass location. I asked them to take my pics from ETwB and just add my children's pictures to my PPP, so when I added it at home I didn't have tons of pics of other people's kids. After they added only my kids to my PPP, I had 280 pics!! Yes, that's 280!! Who knows what it will end up being after I edit them this weekend. We took tons of photos with characters and around the parks. We also added all the ride photos. I think it's a great purchase.
The ride only PP was $45 and you had to purchase at a ride photo location. you cannot prepurchase.