Tell me if the photo package is worth it.

[Tigger1]

We always get the memory maker at WDW. Will i want it on our first Cruise? Where do they take pictures and how many. We have a 3 day cruise. Do I need one for both rooms? We have 2 rooms for a total of 4 adults.

Thanks Tigger1

 

[MunFam]

Well, we spent 14 days on board and came home with just shy of 400 pictures with prints. I bought the prints plus digital files in advance to get the discount. I did the math and our package cost us approximately .50 cents for each digital file and another .50 cents for each print...so it was worth it to me. Would I buy it for 3 days, AND two rooms, probably not. I would just buy a small 20 prints package or something like that. There is no benefit to buying the other packages in advance, so I would just wait til I was onboard and saw what we ended up with.

 

[michellekcm]

Is it worth it is a very subjective question. For us it is - but we have young children and do a lot of character meets as well as family and solo portrait shoots. For others, maybe not.

You will need to purchase a package for each room - the only exception is dependent children across multiple rooms. However, they do give a 50% discount on a second all-photos package if your rooms are linked. Both rooms have to buy the all-photos package for that though.

They take photos at character meets, and also have portrait stations set up with plain backgrounds and/or port or theme appropriate backgrounds (eg a pirate background). I assume they have these on 3-night cruises too. If you are stopping at Castaway Cay they will have photographers there too.

You can pre-purchase the photo package to receive a discount and then cancel once on board if you decide it's not worth it for you. They will refund back to your credit card.

 

[lbus42]

As the pp stated the value of the photo package is very subjective. Since this is your first cruise, the photos may be more valuable to you. It also depends on how many photos you get. MunFam got 400 on a 14 day cruise, we got about 60 on a 7 day. You can always buy the package in advance to get the discount. You will be able to view your photo folder throughout the cruise. Then before the last evening if you decide there are not enough pictures to justify its purchase, you can then get a refund.

 

[cheermom2four]

I agree, it is subjective. When we did our 3 night cruise, we didnt buy the package as it wasnt really worth it (and good thing as we didnt have many pics). We ended up buying just 1 photo out of maybe 10 that were taken. Next cruise is 7 nights so we will buy the all digital package as we are taking advantage of all the photo ops for all the meet and greets and the royal tea for our youngest daughter.

 

[Tigger1]

Can we take our own pictures at meet and greet?

 

[hanscarlet]

yes you can take your own camera to the meet and greets and take your own pics.

on our second cruise we got 67 photos for $250 for a 5 night cruise and they were pretty good and I thought it was worth it..... then we only got about 45 on a 7 nighter and the quality wasn't the best so we won't be purchasing the package the next time we go

 

[Tzbwilsonfam]

Question: My husband, son and I have a room and my mother in law is in a cabin by herself.....

From what I'm reading, if we purchase the photo package for our cabin, a picture of just my son and my mother in law would not be on our photo package?? He's in our room so why wouldn't it be? Confused!

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Question: My husband, son and I have a room and my mother in law is in a cabin by herself.....

From what I'm reading, if we purchase the photo package for our cabin, a picture of just my son and my mother in law would not be on our photo package?? He's in our room so why wouldn't it be? Confused!

If only your room (dad, mom and son) purchase the full package, any photos taken containing anyone who's in that room will be included. So a photo of your son with his grandmother would be included. Any photos of grandma alone will not.

 

[Tzbwilsonfam]

If only your room (dad, mom and son) purchase the full package, any photos taken containing anyone who's in that room will be included. So a photo of your son with his grandmother would be included. Any photos of grandma alone will not.

thank you!!! I can't imagine why she would want any photos of herself alone so that's what I needed to know!

 

[squirk]

For my family of five, it is not worth it. My kids are not in love with character meets, and we have always found the other photos taken (CC, Pirate Night, etc.) to be nice but not nice enough to buy a package. Usually, when we sift through the photos at Shutters, we find only $80-$100 worth of photos that we like enough to take home.

Honestly, the photos that we enjoy the most and put on our AppleTV screen-saver are the ones we took ourselves.

 

[maribeau]

My family of 4 has done two cruises with DCL and have pre-purchased the photo package before our sailing date both times (all prints and digital files). On the first cruise, it all worked out beautifully... we came home with prints and a CD that contained all of our photos.

The second cruise was a completely different experience with respect to the photo package. On debarkation morning I was told that our USB drive with digital images was not ready because of "network problems" they had on the ship overnight. We carried our prints off of the ship and were told that they would mail the USB drive. About a week after we got off of the ship, a new charge appeared on my credit card from Disney Cruise Lines. The vendor had told DCL to charge us for the package (which I had purchased directly from the vendor before ever getting on the ship). DCL added it as a charge to my stateroom *after* we had settled our bill and gotten off of the ship. This was a HUGE battle to get refunded. The vendor was completely unhelpful in this process, and I ended up having to demand to see the document I would *surely* have signed on board authorizing the vendor to have this charge posted to my stateroom. (My point was "I sign a slip every time I so much as bought a drink at dinner... I sure as heck would have signed a slip to authorize this large of a charge on board, right?" Since there was no such signature generated on board, DCL had to refund the charge.)

When I eventually received the USB drive, the images were corrupt, and only about 1/3 of each image was intact. The vendor told me that they could not recreate the drive, as the images had already been deleted from their systems.

As I was going through this particular customer service experience with DCL's photo vendor, I did a lot of research and discovered that my experience was not unusual. Granted, it's not the majority of people who have this trouble, but there are definitely way more than "just a few" of us who have experienced it.

I personally will never spend another dime on a DCL photo package as long as they continue to use the same vendor. From this point forward, I'll take the photos with my own camera or not at all.

So, for us, it was a crapshoot. I liked the photos we did get, but I will not do business with that vendor again.

 

[Hundredacre]

We have never done it. We never end up with many pictures at all. sometimes we get other people's pictures. About 1/2 the time, none!! 0. Nada. So we find the face recognition does not work well. We must have common features.

 

[Bambi D.]

We just off the Dream on Friday and I miss it already !!

In my opinion it was worth every penny! I only bought the digital package from the cruise portion of our trip and love it! I didn't buy any of the prints that were in our folder because I knew I had the digital photos. I can print them in the sizes I want and when I'm ready.
I did the same thing for the WDW portion of the trip. Told the kids to stop at EVERY photo opportunity and "click" their magic bands after each ride at the photo booths. WDW will make short videos of some of them adding some characters. They are really cute. It also comes with bonus photo's of characters and park shots. I'm happy to email you samples if you'd like. Just let me know.

 

[MunFam]

I have three more things to add about the photo package...

1. The lighting is terrible. We could not get a decent picture with our iphone, galaxy S6, nikon D3000 with external flash...not one properly lighted picture, including manual settings. Therefore we quit taking pictures and relied solely on the photographers.

2. They scan your KTTW card, but it does nothing. They use a facial recogniton software. If you are missing pictures, you need to look on the "lost photos" screens and add them to your portfolio. If they are not there, then ask a cast member about the photos. We spent about 30-45 minutes a day (5-10 minutes a time, pretty much every time we passed through Shutters and also before bed and before breakfast each day) making sure all of our photos ended up in our portfolio.

3. Our file was also corrupt. I checked it on my laptop before getting off the ship (after using our paid internet to download their software). They made it right before we debarked.

 

[Cunningham Family 2017]

Will the photographers take a picture with your camera if you give it to them lie in the parks?

 

[michellekcm]

Will the photographers take a picture with your camera if you give it to them lie in the parks?

No, the Shutters photographers only use their cameras. However, most meet and greets also have a CM present, and they will happily take pictures using your camera for you.

 

[Cunningham Family 2017]

No, the Shutters photographers only use their cameras. However, most meet and greets also have a CM present, and they will happily take pictures using your camera for you.

Thank you
Do you have to buy a package or can you pick and choose the photos you want as you go?

 

[summerskye]

Thank you
Do you have to buy a package or can you pick and choose the photos you want as you go?

I think you can pick individuals photos or a group of them to purchase. But, from what I have seen it can get expensive.

 

[Tigger1]

My family of 4 has done two cruises with DCL and have pre-purchased the photo package before our sailing date both times (all prints and digital files). On the first cruise, it all worked out beautifully... we came home with prints and a CD that contained all of our photos.

The second cruise was a completely different experience with respect to the photo package. On debarkation morning I was told that our USB drive with digital images was not ready because of "network problems" they had on the ship overnight. We carried our prints off of the ship and were told that they would mail the USB drive. About a week after we got off of the ship, a new charge appeared on my credit card from Disney Cruise Lines. The vendor had told DCL to charge us for the package (which I had purchased directly from the vendor before ever getting on the ship). DCL added it as a charge to my stateroom *after* we had settled our bill and gotten off of the ship. This was a HUGE battle to get refunded. The vendor was completely unhelpful in this process, and I ended up having to demand to see the document I would *surely* have signed on board authorizing the vendor to have this charge posted to my stateroom. (My point was "I sign a slip every time I so much as bought a drink at dinner... I sure as heck would have signed a slip to authorize this large of a charge on board, right?" Since there was no such signature generated on board, DCL had to refund the charge.)

When I eventually received the USB drive, the images were corrupt, and only about 1/3 of each image was intact. The vendor told me that they could not recreate the drive, as the images had already been deleted from their systems.

As I was going through this particular customer service experience with DCL's photo vendor, I did a lot of research and discovered that my experience was not unusual. Granted, it's not the majority of people who have this trouble, but there are definitely way more than "just a few" of us who have experienced it.

I personally will never spend another dime on a DCL photo package as long as they continue to use the same vendor. From this point forward, I'll take the photos with my own camera or not at all.

So, for us, it was a crapshoot. I liked the photos we did get, but I will not do business with that vendor again.

This is very helpful information. Thanks for sharing. We will take our own pictures.