PhotoPass+, worth it?

[Kiotzu]

As the title describes, would most of you say it is a luxury that is worth purchasing?

 

[LoriLovesDisneyland]

For our family it was well worth it. We ended up with over 100 photos and could have had many more. There are so many great Photopass locations you can visit and you can get all of your attraction photos loaded for no extra fees. One thing I did not know going in was that if you go to any character meals and do the photo as you enter the restaurant, they come to your table later and give you the packet of photos that they usually try to sell you, at no charge. Sometimes they do ask to see your photo pass before they hand them to you. Also if they come to your table and try to sell them to you, just say you have the photopass, they look at it and give you the pictures. So for $69.95 we received photo packets from all 3 character meals we did, all photos taken by a photopass photographer, all the ride photos, we were able to add borders once we got home, and we received cds with all the original photos, some great stock photos, and all the borders we added. We can now order prints from anywhere and get some great deals that way. So worth it for us. All the photopass photographers did many fun poses at each location, especially when they saw you had a photopass. Ended up with over 600 photos after playing with all the various borders (100 originals with several different border choices). Loved it!

 

[VandVsmama]

I purchased PhotoPass+ for our 1-day trip in June and it was totally worth it. If we had paid for all of the photos at full retail price with multiple copies and special borders, it would have cost me over $1000. So yeah, $69.95 was a really good deal!

 

[Imdboss]

We did PP+ for the first time on our last trip and I wish I would've done it sooner! We don't do character meals and usually wouldn't pay for ride photos so that wasn't part of the factor for us. I was just happy to have so many nice pics as a family! We would always bring the really nice camera with us for a day or two in the parks to get good quality shots (other than using our phones) and it was really nice being able to leave that at home. Also as others have said, if the CMs aren't really busy they tend to spend more time with you getting multiple poses and pics when they know you have PP+. I wanted to get some fun shots (me and DH kissing and kids hiding their eyes) and the CM was more than happy to get the perfect shot lined up. Did some other fun shots during our trip and never had a CM try to rush us.

Just received our PP+ for our trip next week!

 

[ILoveDzny]

How do you purchase PP+? We have never been to Disneyland and our first trip is in May next year.

 

[Kiotzu]

For our family it was well worth it. We ended up with over 100 photos and could have had many more. There are so many great Photopass locations you can visit and you can get all of your attraction photos loaded for no extra fees. One thing I did not know going in was that if you go to any character meals and do the photo as you enter the restaurant, they come to your table later and give you the packet of photos that they usually try to sell you, at no charge. Sometimes they do ask to see your photo pass before they hand them to you. Also if they come to your table and try to sell them to you, just say you have the photopass, they look at it and give you the pictures. So for $69.95 we received photo packets from all 3 character meals we did, all photos taken by a photopass photographer, all the ride photos, we were able to add borders once we got home, and we received cds with all the original photos, some great stock photos, and all the borders we added. We can now order prints from anywhere and get some great deals that way. So worth it for us. All the photopass photographers did many fun poses at each location, especially when they saw you had a photopass. Ended up with over 600 photos after playing with all the various borders (100 originals with several different border choices). Loved it!

hmm, so all ride photos are included as well? thats a big plus.

I purchased PhotoPass+ for our 1-day trip in June and it was totally worth it. If we had paid for all of the photos at full retail price with multiple copies and special borders, it would have cost me over $1000. So yeah, $69.95 was a really good deal!

we will be there for 3 days so that will be even bigger savings!

We did PP+ for the first time on our last trip and I wish I would've done it sooner! We don't do character meals and usually wouldn't pay for ride photos so that wasn't part of the factor for us. I was just happy to have so many nice pics as a family! We would always bring the really nice camera with us for a day or two in the parks to get good quality shots (other than using our phones) and it was really nice being able to leave that at home. Also as others have said, if the CMs aren't really busy they tend to spend more time with you getting multiple poses and pics when they know you have PP+. I wanted to get some fun shots (me and DH kissing and kids hiding their eyes) and the CM was more than happy to get the perfect shot lined up. Did some other fun shots during our trip and never had a CM try to rush us.

Just received our PP+ for our trip next week!

Makes sense, I've heard very good things about CM being very accommodating with photos!

How do you purchase PP+? We have never been to Disneyland and our first trip is in May next year.

https://www.disneyphotopass.com/specialoffers/dlrppp.htm

 

[Spyral]

How do you purchase PP+? We have never been to Disneyland and our first trip is in May next year.

Check out this thread: PhotoPass Superthread

We have done the PhotoPass before, and found it to be a good value, but the PhotoPass+ sounds like a great value, especially since it includes ride photos and character meals! I am going to be ordering it shortly as well for our upcoming trip

 

[offwithyourhead]

It depends who you are and what value you get out of the photos. I judged the worth by:

-Value of photos -- is it worth it to you to have lots of cool pictures taken by a pro, or to have everyone in the shot? How often will you stop to get pictures taken with characters or at points of interest? Are you capturing memories of your kids that you feel you couldn't do as well on your own?

-Ride photos (this was the deal-sealer for me) cost something like $15 each. We were there as a group of 4 for 2 weeks, and if we'd bought a fraction of our ride photos, it would have cost the same. But now we have them saved on our computers so we can print as many copies as we want.

I'm not sure if there's photopass photographers at character meals since I didn't go to any, but THAT would be a good selling point for me. A photographer can capture your child's excitement while you just relax and eat breakfast.

I think it's worth it for myself. If you're not interested in ride photos, character photos, or whatever, it isn't worth it.

How do you purchase PP+? We have never been to Disneyland and our first trip is in May next year.

https://disneyland.disney.go.com/guest-services/photo-pass-service/ All the info you need is here! There is also a Disney World one but it costs more.

 

[LoriLovesDisneyland]

It depends who you are and what value you get out of the photos. I judged the worth by:

-Value of photos -- is it worth it to you to have lots of cool pictures taken by a pro, or to have everyone in the shot? How often will you stop to get pictures taken with characters or at points of interest? Are you capturing memories of your kids that you feel you couldn't do as well on your own?

-Ride photos (this was the deal-sealer for me) cost something like $15 each. We were there as a group of 4 for 2 weeks, and if we'd bought a fraction of our ride photos, it would have cost the same. But now we have them saved on our computers so we can print as many copies as we want.

I'm not sure if there's photopass photographers at character meals since I didn't go to any, but THAT would be a good selling point for me. A photographer can capture your child's excitement while you just relax and eat breakfast.

I think it's worth it for myself. If you're not interested in ride photos, character photos, or whatever, it isn't worth it.



https://disneyland.disney.go.com/guest-services/photo-pass-service/ All the info you need is here! There is also a Disney World one but it costs more.

The photopass photographers are only at character meals for the picture you get taken right before you get seated. They are not walking around during your meal.

 

[Lauren in NC]

If you're going to do character meals or buy ride photos, I'd say it's a no-brainer to get the PP+. Now, for just the normal PP photos, you can, of course, hand over your camera to the photographer and have them just use that. But, as other people have mentioned, you do tend to get special treatment if you have PP+. We had the most lovely lady who we met on a not very busy day in Cars Land. She ended up following us around for a while taking photos of my son in various spots, and then did a family photo shoot for us in front of Flo's - those were some of my favorite photos of the trip. On my son's first birthday trip, the PP photographer took the most adorable picture of my son with Minnie and Mickey (they sometimes meet together in front of the train station with a PP photographer). My DH was snapping away at the same time, but the PP photographer just happened to have the right timing and was at the right angle to catch DS laughing into the camera.

Also - I'm a scrapbooker and I like hanging photos up around the house, so I know that I'm going to use those photos when I get back home. If you're the type to just take the photos and never look at them again, then probably not worth it

 

[BigCheese]

The ride and character meal photos are great and give PP+ that extra benefit, but as others have mentioned, the ability to edit your photos (not exclusive to PP+, but my personal favorite thing about PP in general) and add all of the cool borders, especially this year with the Diamond Celebration, make PP in general this year very special. And I concur, it seems the PP photographers go that extra mile when they see you have a PP+ card.

 

[NiceOneSimba]

Basically what everyone else has said--character meals and ride photos make this a great deal. You get the actual prints from the character meals, as well as the digital images. You just get the digital images of the ride photos, but those are amazing--so much better than a shaky cell phone photo of your image! And if you have kids doing Jedi training--you get those digital images, too. Totally worth it for us!

 

[egritz]

100% worth it in my opinion. Even without the Character Meals & Ride photos, it alleviates the need for you to worry about bringing your camera and hoping the cast member taking your picture does a good job. They are using better cameras than most park-goers (not all, I still see a lot of DSLR's around the park) but they know the proper settings for the photo spot, and their lighting for inside (i.e. inside Mickey & Minnie's house) as well as night-time photos is going to be far superior than what they are going to get using your camera (IMO). The last few trips I've lugged around my DSLR as well as used our PP+ and this trip I'm considering just bringing a point & shoot and just letting the PP photographers do their thing at the photo spots and character meet n greets. I'm always worried my camera is going to get knocked around and damaged too, not to mention it is a pain to take it on rides.

If you value the photographic memories of your trip, it is hands-down worth it for either the $70 pre-order price or the $100 in -park price. I will never go to DL without purchasing it! We even have a couple short adult-only trips planned next year and I plan on purchasing it for those too....DH will have to humor me in getting some pictures for our trip!

 

[sgrap]

So worth it!! Order online ahead of time !

 

[Winnowill]

I'll chime in with a "definitely worth it" nod. We were in the parks for 4-1/2 days, and wound up with 420 pictures in our PP+ account - BEFORE I started playing with them.

 

[8lovesmickey]

I agree with 'definitely worth it' if you plan ahead and use it! We bought one for the first time last year and saved a ton of money. We bought it early, as mentioned, and always showed it to the PP photographers. Every one spent tons of time with us and took dozens of photos. We also got all the ride photos (including when we rode the same thing multiple times), character photos, etc. When we got home, we played with the pictures, added borders, changed some to b&W, etc., then ordered the CD. We made a book through Shutterfly which was less than half of what Disney charged and it turned out awesome. We could also use the pictures for our holiday cards since we had purchased the CD. If you're planning on taking lots of pictures anyhow, or if it's a special occasion, or just for lots of memories, I think it's totally worth it.

 

[mpalea]

Yes! definitely worth it. Here's a post I just did on PhotoPass+ at Disneyland - http://livinthemommylife.com/2015/09/photopass-at-disneyland-all-you-need-to-know.html

 

[Xenorye]

Absolutely worth it.

I feel like we should have a sticky at the top of the boards, subject line: "Photopass+ is worth it." And it's closed because no other replies are needed.

 

[Winnowill]

I just ordered our PP+ CD from our five days in mid-August. I started out with 420 pictures in my account - which is a respectable total on its own. By the time I got done re-sizing, cropping, adding borders and whatnot, I wound up with more than 1400. So, yeah - it's worth it.

 

[whoever]

Worth it for the ride photos alone. As far as the DLR photogs... I usually just have them use my gear as I can control the pics better if they are shot on my equipment (and I have better equipment).