Talk to me about Memory Maker

We loved it when we traveled with a large group. However don't think we are doing it when it is just the 3 of us not sure yet though
 
The biggest advantage is that you get the ride photos and any "special" photos, FYI; not all CMs can do the special photos. We always have the photopass CMs take pictures with our camera as well, so that the whole family is always in them in case you did not buy the MM. I would not purchase it if we were only going for less than 5 days, I do not think it would be worth it.
 
We always do one and I think it's worth it. We end up with over a couple hundred for a 7 day trip. Some of the photographers are great and will pose you for great shots and others will snap one picture and that's it; so if you don't think the photographer got good shots, hit that spot again another time. Some are college students, some just "regular" people, and some are actually photographers. We found one who was working the Mexico to Italy half of World Showcase one morning about 3 years ago and ended up sort of following him (not on purpose). We posed for him in a couple of countries and found out he was a "real" photographer. By the time we met up with him in Italy, he did a huge photoshoot of us -- 30 or 40 pictures -- because he wasn't busy, and those are some of the best photos of my husband and me outside of our wedding. (If you see Frank, he's worth waiting in line for! :) ) There have been others that have gotten my normally reserved husband to be goofy and silly, and there's always one that can make it look like my boys actually get along! :rotfl2: The ride pictures are so-so in my opinion and the character meal pictures vary. The ones we had from Tusker House with Donald Duck were good, the ones from Park Fare and 'Ohana were ok (but those don't have characters in them). We don't do many (if any) character meet and greets, but when you do, those are added to the Memory Maker too, and you can add a character signature stamp to the picture during the editing process afterwards. I thought that was pretty cool!

I think we may have had Frank in Italy on our trip in 2013. Whoever it was took a *ton* of pictures of our family. It felt like a photo shoot. He did some of all of us (DH, me, our 5 kids, plus oldest DS's girlfriend); some of just the kids in a group; individuals of each kid; some of DH & I; and some of DS & GF. There was no one else around at the time -- everyone else was off watching some performers. He just kept taking pictures -- we weren't asking for all of those shots (though we certainly appreciated them) We had a lot of fun with him and all of his shots were great! He knew how to pose everyone. We also had great shots in 2 different locations with a photographer named Brent in MK. We especially loved the pictures he took of our girls (ages 8 & 13 at the time) interacting and goofing around with Mickey. We really didn't have any bad shots that trip (I think we had about 250 photos before editing) but the ones from Italy and the ones taken by Brent at MK alone would have been worth the cost.
 
Is there a list somewhere of what dining photos are included and which ride photos? Also, is there a way that the photographers know that you purchases it.? Last time I was the w did the photo pass and I had a lanyard. The cm told me they were told to spot those people and take extra photos. We got some of our favorite shots of our kids standing in line.
 

Tusker House no longer takes your picture with Donald before entering. They take your picture, but it is just your family. We got the MM package for the first time this past Fall, and I wasn't super impressed. Yes, we had a few nice group shots, but a good amount of pictures of my kids with different characters were not focused. You can hand any Photopass photographer your own camera, and they will take pictures for you.
 
We weren't going to get Memory Maker for our first trip last December but once we started seeing the pics on the photopass site we loved them so paid $200. The only disappointing photos were at the french pavillion. The Enchanted tales with Belle and Jedi training phortos were wonderful. Would definitely recommend getting it
 
I'm so glad to be reading this. We're going for our first trip with my stepson and in-laws in June and it will be nice to get my MIL out from behind the camera and still assure her there will be an epic ton of pictures to make an album from the trip. :) Sounds like a great value for the five days we'll be there.
Question: are there ever photopass photographers on the resort grounds or just the parks? Just curious.
 
I agree with the PP - these photos are the only ones I have of my DH smiling - our weddings photos he didn't smile. But it was SO amazing seeing him SMILE (the military drums smiling out of you) and it was magic - i would (and am) paying for it again "Just to see him smile"
 
We purchased it for our party of 9. We had about 400 photos, but that included doubles and the Disney-added photos (so annoying, IMHO). The quality of some of the pictures was questionable; I would have expected more. There were lighting issues, placement issues, CMs that were asked to include magic shots (and posed us accordingly) but nothing was added to the pictures, some surly attitudes...

I do think it was a decent value for us but do wish we had utilized it even more, but we were at peak time (Christmas) with lots of crowds and lines for photographers, so we by-passed lots.

Would we do it again? Most likely, even with a certain level of disappointment this time around.
 
I'm so glad to be reading this. We're going for our first trip with my stepson and in-laws in June and it will be nice to get my MIL out from behind the camera and still assure her there will be an epic ton of pictures to make an album from the trip. :) Sounds like a great value for the five days we'll be there.
Question: are there ever photopass photographers on the resort grounds or just the parks? Just curious.

You can end up with as many pictures as you want! Even enough to keep a MIL happy! :) By the way, sometimes you find them in out of the way corners, so keep your eyes open. We had photos taken one time at the exit of Big Thunder -- great shots with the cars going by in the background! We also have some great ones from somewhere between Liberty Square and Adventureland -- Tom Sawyer Island is the background. It was our Christmas card photo that year. You can look up maps of where they usually hang out and print them to take with you if you think that will help your MIL put the camera down for awhile too.

Photographers are only in the parks (including the waterparks, if I remember correctly), which is too bad, if you ask me. It would be fun to have them at the resorts, but I can see how it would probably cost Disney more than they would make. There used to be Photopass information desks (back when they were called Photopass -- we haven't done a big family parks trip since 2013, so I'm a little rusty on this stuff) at some of the resorts where you could get information and buy a Photopass, but I don't know if they're still there and they didn't take pictures.
 
Just an FYI: If you pose for a magic shot and the "magic" does not apear - contact them and they will insert the magic for you :)
 
You can end up with as many pictures as you want! Even enough to keep a MIL happy! :) By the way, sometimes you find them in out of the way corners, so keep your eyes open. We had photos taken one time at the exit of Big Thunder -- great shots with the cars going by in the background! We also have some great ones from somewhere between Liberty Square and Adventureland -- Tom Sawyer Island is the background. It was our Christmas card photo that year. You can look up maps of where they usually hang out and print them to take with you if you think that will help your MIL put the camera down for awhile too.

Photographers are only in the parks (including the waterparks, if I remember correctly), which is too bad, if you ask me. It would be fun to have them at the resorts, but I can see how it would probably cost Disney more than they would make. There used to be Photopass information desks (back when they were called Photopass -- we haven't done a big family parks trip since 2013, so I'm a little rusty on this stuff) at some of the resorts where you could get information and buy a Photopass, but I don't know if they're still there and they didn't take pictures.

Thank you so much! We will be keeping an eye out, what with MIL, FIL, SIL, BIL, Unborn Niece/Nephew, DH and DS6 and 3 of us having our first time there, we'll want all the pics we can handle.
 
Does anyone know what the max number of families is that you can split it with? Has anyone ever done this to cut the cost? I'm part of a facebook group that was discussing doing this. I was considering because I'd love the pics, but can't spend the $190.
 
I would be wary of those shares. I did try one and it was so disorganised that I just eventually paid for ourselves. I also heard after that disney shut down the shared account
 
we did on our last trip and loved it... gave me great escape from having to dig out my phone and/or camera every time. All of the ones we had were aswesome and great shots. They even got some great ones of Goofy dancing with my daughter :)

She kept asking for magic shots and they loaded that child up lol We ended up with over 200 pics :)
 
I would be wary of those shares. I did try one and it was so disorganised that I just eventually paid for ourselves. I also heard after that disney shut down the shared account
Thanks! I was a little nervous about the idea of sending someone the money and then allowing them to have access to all of our photos as well. I'm going to try to squeeze this into my Disney budget! I'd love to be able to do it.
 
I love it, especially since I travel alone with my children. They have gotten some really good shots of character interaction that I enjoyed just watching like in 2012, my daughter had been to BBB and had on a long gown. She and Princess Belle had an awesome interaction. I was caught up in the moment and didn’t get one shot; but they got some amazing ones.
We also generally have something like Pirate’s League or BBB and Memory Maker gets me those photos without having to buy them separate. Includes pre-character meal photos and we usually go to Tusker House. Photo is $30 purchased separate.
 
Considering our son's daycare has a photographer come to do school pictures and we get 3 shots for $150 (with the digital rights), MM was a HUGE bargain. My photo icon here is a MM picture to give you an idea. It looks way better in the original and not so great tiny like this, but it gives you an idea. We even blew it up to a 16" photo and it looks great. We still took some pics with our phone, but not as many as we would have needed. But the biggest bonus was getting all of us in the picture. No one was left out like usually happens. We didn't stop very often for pictures since our son was only 2 and didn't have a lot of patience, but we'll definitely do it again. My DH said it was the best money we spent for Disney. Yes, you do get some crappy photos in there. But if you are nice to the photographers, they usually take several shots and you can usually find some fairly good ones.

We had a great experience during a rain storm where a photographer saw our son was kind of bored in his stroller. He went over and did a several minute long photoshoot of him sitting in the stroller, making him laugh, playing peek-a-boo, they are great pictures of him.
 
Are there photographers in each of the countries in Epcot? To take your picture with the country's main icon?
 
We got it for our first trip and I have included it in the budget for our next trip. We got over 250 photos - plus the 1000 that I took with my own camera. Yes, some of the photos I took with my personal camera were awesome, but with the MM photos, i actually got to be in the shots. I also appreciated having the photographers as my "back ups" at character greets. They got excellent shots of my kids with characters -they do it all day long and know which shots will be best. My kids also LOVED all the ride photos. It was worth it for that alone. We rode Splash 7 times and got photos from each ride. That alone would've more than paid for MM. My husband started posing for the photos and we have a progression of his silly poses in the photo book we made. We wouldn't have those fun pictures if we didn't have MM. I also enjoyed adding the character's autographs to photos with the kids and putting them in our photo book instead of having to "scrapbook" the autographs separately with photos. And being able to put the date stamp/icon on some of our family shots will ensure we don't forget which trip the photos are from. It's a must-do for us.
 


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