Photopass at new price... worth it?

[Zhoen]

Ok, I'm a dummy.

"real life" took over for a while, and I was off in that other world, the grey one, when the photopass price went up... Now, when I first really started planning this trip, last year, they had the "buy the cd, get the album free" deal, and I thought "wow!"

So that is my frame of reference, and now I'm having trouble justifying paying $119 for just the CD... We have cameras on our cellphones and I'm not a scrapper, I just thought it would be a nice ad-on... but the extra price without any "extras" just isn't sitting well with me.

We've never ordered from photopass before, cellphone pictures have been good enough for us in the past. And looking at their website, where you can download pictures for $10 each, I'd need to get at least 12 photos I love before I'd even break even... I just don't want to spend the whole vacation thinking "we need to find more characters so I get my money's worth!!!"

What do you think, will I be kicking myself later if I don't pre-buy?

 

[karice2]

I always pre-buy because you never know if you are going to get that great picture that you can't capture with your cell phone. Of course, if you don't like it you can get your money back if you purchase within 30 days of your trip.

I find that families get a bunch more pics than I do but I mostly travel solo and still get a bunch. I pre-ordered 2 for my upcoming trips.

 

[tzeitel]

Never got it before but this trip will be a Grand Gathering and we'll be there for 11 days so I figured we will have tons of photo ops. I am even debating upgrading to the new plus package that started today

 

[CatNipRules]

Never got it before but this trip will be a Grand Gathering and we'll be there for 11 days so I figured we will have tons of photo ops. I am even debating upgrading to the new plus package that started today

I'm planning on upgrading to the new plus package. I already ordered the PhotoCD and Album. I was talking it over with DH and he agrees that we should upgrade to the Plus package. If nothing else we will get the pictures from the rides which we usually do anyway. I can't wait!!

 

[turning40withMickey]

Way back in the ice age there used to be photopass "share" groups, even had threads here on the DIS. That is no more, but if you happen to know of that alternate universe called facebook, this type of sharing still happens there....

Basically you share the cost with a few families who are going to the World around the same time you are, and the leader mails you a CD of all of your photos. If you only had to pay a fraction of the price, you wouldn't have to worry about getting a zillion pictures to choose from. At least, that is the theory....I have always done a share and I am still obsessed with getting 58409275348925489203 pictures....

 

[Swimalie]

When we went, we had pictures taken but hadn't decided if we'd buy or not. We did buy the cd after we got back and we're still using it, 2 years later. My parents were there for part of the trip and there is a great picture of them on the cd. They needed a good photo of the 2 of them for their cruise so they asked me to send them the one from Disney. It was well worth the money to me.

 

[Zhoen]

I always pre-buy because you never know if you are going to get that great picture that you can't capture with your cell phone. Of course, if you don't like it you can get your money back if you purchase within 30 days of your trip.

That's a great idea, thanks!

 

[pantherlj]

Can someone be more specific on the 30 day "money back".

If my trip is Oct 2-27 when would I need to buy to get the refund if I deciide I don't want them? I assume it's the $119 prepay?

Does anyone know how many waterpark pictures they take, especially in the fall?

On a side note, I hate that they don't do the video anymore - it's a favorite from our last trip!

Thanks!

 

[lisa-upnorth]

do a share! I ran a share 3 yrs ago and we all paid $15 for our photopass discs

The shares can be found on facebook now because the Dis didn't want any money transactions here. Do a search here for more info on finding one ! As for the pics--we did not have many(maybe 3) with characters BUT the family and candid shots around the parks are SO crisp and clear they are by FAR my favs of the trip! you get the disc and use whoever to print(I do snapfish) at .09 a print.Have fun!

 

[ValpoCory]

do a share! I ran a share 3 yrs ago and we all paid $15 for our photopass discs

The shares can be found on facebook now because the Dis didn't want any money transactions here. Do a search here for more info on finding one ! As for the pics--we did not have many(maybe 3) with characters BUT the family and candid shots around the parks are SO crisp and clear they are by FAR my favs of the trip! you get the disc and use whoever to print(I do snapfish) at .09 a print.Have fun!

Are there ethical implications with doing a Photopass Share?

 

[chimilady]

AFAIK, I don't think there is an official ban on sharing more than one account per family, though I think that Disney expects that only one family will use an account. There is a new Photopass+ account that has more things, and it is designed that you can only really do one account per family, as you can only add one card to the account, rather than multiple cards to the account. Plus, you get a book and a CD with all of the shots. And if you had a share with the new + account, there would certainly be an argument over who got the book.

 

[lisa-upnorth]

Are there ethical implications with doing a Photopass Share?

not sure what kind of answer you are looking for??


large families that go together share one account, groups of friends that go on vacation together share and order together

 

[NYEmomma]

We did the Photopass for the first time in October at the old price and even at that value, I don't think we'd do it again.

I have a DSLR camera that I gave to the photographers to use as well and the quality/clarity of the pictures taken on my camera are the same as the ones taken with the photopass camera.

I was afraid I wouldn't want to carry around my big camera with me (another reason we did the pass), but it was much less cumbersome and in the way than I thought it would be.

I print out all of our pictures for an album but don't scrapbook so while the extra add-ons that you can put on pictures are indeed really cute, they're just not worth getting the photopasss for since they're just getting shoved into a picture album.

 

[wshupnastar]

Can someone fill me in? I must have missed something. I see the new price for the CD, but what is the "plus" option? Also, can you still get the book with the CD? If anyone has a link, could you please post it?

Thanks!

 

[ValpoCory]

Can someone fill me in? I must have missed something. I see the new price for the CD, but what is the "plus" option? Also, can you still get the book with the CD? If anyone has a link, could you please post it?

Thanks!

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2903408

Basically, they just add in the ride photos and certain dining photos to your Photopass account, and you get a book. Pass.


Also, the $20 price increase to $119.95 is a terrible idea. My wife is a huge photo person, and even she is frustrated at the price increase. At $99.95, we would begrudgingly pay and get it. But now, we might pass.

 

[dclfun]

not sure what kind of answer you are looking for??


large families that go together share one account, groups of friends that go on vacation together share and order together

Yes, and complete strangers also do a share. I don't think it's ethical at all but people are always trying to find ways to get around paying what Disney had expected them to pay. If you're one large family that's one thing, but the groups that were organized on here were mostly people who had no relationship to each other at all. Different story.

 

[Colleen27]

I have always pre-ordered to get the lower price and then decided after the fact whether or not it was worth it, but I don't think I'll be doing that again. We ran into a dismal number of Photopass opportunities in January, requested a refund on the CD when we got home because there were literally only 3 pictures we'd have printed, and here we are two months later and still haven't gotten the refund. Add the higher price to that experience and I just don't think it is worth doing again.

 

[ceemys]

I think pushing it to $200 is not worth it. I will buy ride photos, but not $100 worth.

 

[tkitty]

I think pushing it to $200 is not worth it. I will buy ride photos, but not $100 worth.

I never thought of it but can you add ride photos to your photopass? How do you do that?
We did photo pass last trip and liked it but did not get alot of photos.

 

[AnjieNet]

I never thought of it but can you add ride photos to your photopass? How do you do that?
We did photo pass last trip and liked it but did not get alot of photos.

The only ride photo you can add to the regular Photopass is Test Track. You have to have the Plus to do the others.