Trying to decide about the Photopass????? Help!!!!

[tadamom]

We leave for our Disney trip in less than 2 weeks. We have never done the Photopass and to be honest after reading some info, I still don't fully understand it.

On all of our trips before, it has been all of DH's family so there has always been someone to take pics of the four of us. This is the first time we are going as a family of 4 and I'm trying to decide if we should do the Photopass. We will be taking our video camera and my Canon Rebel but should we Photopass or just ask strangers to take our picture for us.

HELP ME DECIDE!!!! Thanks!

 

[SandrA9810]

Even if you don't purchase the pictures - USE THE PHOTOPASS PHOTOGRAPHERS. They are trained to use SLR cameras and will be more than happy to use yours as well. At character locations, they might hand it off to the character attendant. Just make sure you have the camera preset to the right conditions. I was always one to change it for optimal conditions, like if it was just set to auto, then turn it back to auto before handing the camera over.

They'll give you a card, and if you're lucky you'll get the special photopass card every one is talking about that they leave in your room with a 20% off code.

After you get home, you'll have the option of purchasing the pictures or not. If you're going to a Halloween party, during the party you may get 40% off any prints that night. There's a lot of specially edited photos too.

 

[ChrisinNJ]

We leave for our Disney trip in less than 2 weeks. We have never done the Photopass and to be honest after reading some info, I still don't fully understand it.

On all of our trips before, it has been all of DH's family so there has always been someone to take pics of the four of us. This is the first time we are going as a family of 4 and I'm trying to decide if we should do the Photopass. We will be taking our video camera and my Canon Rebel but should we Photopass or just ask strangers to take our picture for us.

HELP ME DECIDE!!!! Thanks!

To me there were 2 benefits to photopass. I like the photos where they add in a character, like tink in your hand, stitch eating ice cream, and at the halloween party, the ghost on the hearse.

I also found that the PP photographers got better shots in front of the castle at night.

Last trip I pre-ordered the CD & told every PP photographer that I saw that I did so. Some of them just took a picture, others went out of their way to take multiple pics & many of them turned out awesome!!

One afternoon, we went to Epoct at about 1pm. DH left something in the car & had to walk back. There were few people at the entrance & I got to talking to 2 PP photographers. They ended up taking about 25 pics of my kids while waiting for my DH. The sat them in a row & posed them in the "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" poses. They have shots of my dds hugging & making silly faces. Pics with every possible character added in. Plus I added the test track photos to my account. So to me, yes it was worth it. I ended up with about 150 pictures, over 200 after adding borders, and I used one for my Christmas card that year.

I did search out photographers though & stopped for every available photo op. If you aren't going to stop & wait to have your pics taken then it is not worth it. BTW I had every photographer take pics with my camera too, just in case.

 

[stich1fan]

We love photopass. We have purchased the cd the last 3 times we went. The last 2 times we went we pre-purchased it. it is so worth it. The photopass photographers take lots of pictures and if you tell them you are purchasing the cd they will take even more. You get the disk with all your photos on it and can have them printed anywhere. Plus you get to add disney borders and saying after your trip, before they send the disk.

For $100 it is so worth it, we love it and plan to pre-purchase in a couple of weeks, since we are heading back.

I think last time we got the disk we had something like 800 pictures. for the same price.....

 

[tigger51276]

I finally decided to give the CD a shot this year and did the $100 pre purchase the night I got there (which meant I could start having pics taken the next day). I am so, SO happy I did it. I had my DD2's first haircut done at the Main Street Barber Shop and I have a feeling the barber somehow notified a photopass person cause next thing I know there they were taking pics. LOTS of pics, it was wonderful. Normally I would have done the pics but I was distracted watching her haircut that it didn't even occur to me. The photopass woman got some truly excellent pictures and if I was to have even bought a couple of them it would have cost me more than the CD with all my vacation pics.
Aside from the first haircut there are some truly beautiful pics they took of my girls. I was amazed.

Because I had mentioned on my reservation that it was for my DD2's birthday, the 2nd day we were there we got a knock on our door and it was someone from the hotel with a birthday card for my DD2 with a picture of mickey mouse and a special photopass card that gave me 20% off my order. Because I had already bought my pass, when I went online (after adding my borders I had over 600 pics) to have the cd sent to me, I put the discount code in and I was able to get the cd, a mug, a calendar and 2 luggage tags all for an additional $34 (on top of the $100).
I will definitely get the CD again when I go back. Like others have said make sure you stop at all photopass people to have them take your pics.

 

[sheldoal]

In May of this year, my husband and I went to WDW for our honeymoon--also our first time at WDW. We didn't search out the photographers, but when we saw them, we walked up and got our pics taken. I had my photopass card ready from day one, having received one with our Disney hotel and ME info.

The beauty of this program is that you are not obligated to buy the pictures if you don't like them. We found a few that we did love (and we have trouble getting shots of just the two of us), so he bought one (5X7), a photobook, and an ornament. A couple of weeks later, but before the pictures expired, I found a coupon on their site that cut the price of the larger photos in half. I bought two large ones for the price of one small one.

While the photobook was very expensive, it was worth the price. I love it! I have it up on my mantel and take it down, periodically, to look through the pages. It was worth the expense, and I included many of the photopass pictures that I didn't buy. They also allow you to use stock photos that are more beautiful than any I could take. I think there was a coupon for extra pages that I used. Later, they had a discount on the photobook--after we had bought it full price. ;-0

I'd recommend that you check back periodically with the site for coupons--right up until the pictures expire (I believe you have one month from the last day a picture was taken with Photopass). You will find different coupons for different products. I'd do it. Not to mention, every single photographer took at least one picture with our personal camera. I included some of those in the photobook too! I actually liked one picture taken with my camera better than the one taken on the professional's. It was content, not quality, that was the issue.

Try it. If you don't like any of the pictures, don't buy. Plus, you can add the cutest borders and pictures of characters (e.g., Minnie, Mickey, Goofy, Stitch, etc.) into the photos that are taken by the professionals. I added a Goofy to Tower of Terror photo, where I'm screaming in fear, hands cupping my face. It is fabulous. Bought that one! And go to the Tree of Life. You get the most adorable picture--in editing, they add a baby Simba to your cradled arms. So cute! There is a Tinker bell one at Epcot too.

 

[sheldoal]

I forgot to add, you create an account at disneyphotopass.com and then add the card that you received from a Photopass photographer to that account (numbers on back). If you forget the Photopass one day (in room), just get another one from that day's photographer. You can add as many cards to your Photopass account as you like. No worries.

Just make sure that you don't lose a card before adding it to the Photopass account. Otherwise, those pictures are lost. Some people recommend taking a picture of the Photopass card (back part), just in case it gets lost or ruined before you can add it to the account.

 

[Leajess99]

I would prebuy the photopass and if you are not happy with it after returning than you can get your money back within like 60 days or so. We did this last visit and only ended up with 4 of our pictures showing up on it. I did get a refund from it. We just didn't see many photographers and some of our pictures we did do did not show up. I chose not to bother having them try to serach for the missing ones.

 

[Poohbear5]

We bought it for our anniversary trip so we could have photos of the two of us. We ended up with 280 photos. Many of the poses were very simliar but it was well worth it to us.
We also did the photobook. There are other photos books that are much more economical but we were pleased with the quality and glad we purchased it.

 

[BDL]

Like the OP, I keep going back and forth about getting the PP. Does anyone, who has benn to THE WORLD recently, remember how many locations in each park that there were PP photograghers?

 

[PrincessSteph]

I am another fan of the photopass. I would definately recommend it!

 

[DisneyCaliCouple]

When my boyfriend and I went to Disney World just the two of us, we decided to do the photopass purely so we'd have lots of pictures of the two of us. I'm very iffy about giving my camera to strangers, but felt okay handing it to someone who worked at Disney. They took a few pictures on my camera and took a ton of pictures with their cameras.
For us, it was absolutely worth it. We got a lot of pictures that had BOTH of us in it!

Another cool benefit was that my boyfriend loaded the photopass codes into the online site while we were still on our trip, so our family back home was able to view the pictures that were being added to the pass while we were still there. They enjoyed that.

 

[MPwifey]

Can I buy a CD with the 40% code from MNSSHP? Right now I know that I want a good picture of DD and I, plus one of the whole group.

 

[crobinv]

I would say ABSOLUTELY purchase the pre-photopass price of $99 and USE IT! We got some amazing shots of our family at hotels, all the parks, downtown disney studios, etc. Also, if you are planning on eating at any of the character restaurants which offer photos (Cindy's, Norway, Chef Mickeys), your photopass number is printed at the top or side of the large photo you receive/purchase. The last CD I purchased had 423 original photos and after adding frames/signatures, we had over 1280 photos (I believe there were 3 CD's).

My current photopass account has 340 photos without any frames yet. I am heading down to Disney next week for an adults only trip with hubby so I will add even more to the photopass account! Then I will add the borders/signatures and checkout for the CD.

A *BIG* reminder about photopass: As soon as you get a photopass card, either take a pic of the back of the photopass # or text message yourself with the numbers! I do it every time after seeing a family lose their photopass and all their pics at the end of their trip! The mom was sitting on the side bench crying... it was terrible! 10 seconds may save you from anxiety later!

 

[scrappinam]

Can I buy a CD with the 40% code from MNSSHP? Right now I know that I want a good picture of DD and I, plus one of the whole group.

I would like to know this too!!!

 

[ILoveMyGirls]

I'm going to do it next year. I looked at photos that were taken and we did not have one of the discounted photo passes. I spend 40+ on 4 pictures that I wanted and that was with a 20.00 off promo code I found (actually a 5.00 off each 5x7 and I bought four photos). If there is a discount code for the photo pass next year or a buy it for less ahead of time like this year, I am in.

 

[SandrA9810]

Any pictures purchased at the Halloween/Christmas party with the discount is strictly off of the prints, not the CDs.

Now if you do plan on printing pictures out, at 7:30pm or so, the registers automatically change over and the pictures are rung up at the discounted price. It's not an override or anything else the cashier does, it's already in the system. So while it's only "supposed to be" for the Party pics, you can have any picture printed out at the discounted price.

This is the way it was a couple of years ago, things might have changed since then. But you might want to ask.

 

[heathriel]

If you have a cell phone with a camera, you can install Evernote on it and use the phone to take a picture of all your photopasses, and they'll all be stored in your Evernote account. You can then just search for "photopass" in your Evernote account when you're online and they'll all pop up for you.

 

[torinsmom]

For me, its a no-brainer. You can get a refund on the Photopass if you decide not to purchase the CD. If you have your whole family, you can get pics of just the kids, just the parents, etc at each spot.

Here is a page that has a list of the locations in each park and other information:

http://allears.net/tp/ppass.htm

 

[map57]

I have checked the photopass website and I am seeing the CD for $149.95. Is this the cost even for pre-purchase? We won't be there till 4/11.

Thx,

map