Is the photopass worth buying?

[momofarealprincessf]

Hi! This website is awesome! I have lots of questions!
Is the photopass worth getting? We are going during Christmas to New Year. I want to have lots of photos and am scared that during that busy time the photographers will be too busy to take too many. What do you think? Thanks! Have a great day!:mickey:

[sdewan]

The photopass is free, so the answer is "yes!". At the first photographer you see, ask for a photopass, and use it for the rest of your trip. Within 30 days you can review the website and determine if any the photos came out good, and then you can order as many as you like.

There will be no shortage of photographers during the Holidays. You may have to wait 5 minutes at some of the more popular spots, like in front of the castle at night, or at the Osborne Spectacle of lights, but most of the time you'll see a photographer standing around waiting for you.

If you want to guarentee lots of photos, go into the Character Spot at EPCOT. You may wait 10-15 minutes for your turn, but a photopass photographer will snap 4 or 5 photos with each character.

Prices on individual photos are not cheap, but if use your photopass a lot and wind up with many good photos, consider the photo CD option. It is $125 for a CD with all your photos on it, but then you can print out as many copies of the photos anywhere you want.

[BigRedDad]

I think it is worth it. You can get a lot of nice pictures and add boarders and icons on them. It is $100 preordered. We only had 120 pictures last time we went. It was all worth it. Some people have over 500.

[Disney Doll]

Absolutely it is worth it. We pre-ordered the CD for our upcoming trip. $100.00 for all your pictures is a great deal compared to the prices they charge for individual pics. Plus, you get the whole family in the photo and it is taken by a Disney photographer instead of your photographically challenged DH. :secret:

[Septbride2002]

the prices are to rich for my blood. I usually get the castle shot and then one other one if it turned out to good to be true. Otherwise I like using my own camera and getting 4x6 prints for 12 cents through shutterfly.

~Amanda

[vicster]

Plus all the pics from the rides you can put on your photopass. You can go on the website and have an album made with your photopass and also upload some of your own pics.

[AuntDJ]

I am going to go with WORTH IT!!!!

It took me a couple of trips to realize the full worth, but now I have it!!!!

This last trip, I only used my camera for candid shots, it there was a photopass person around, my camera did not even come out of my bag. A couple of photographers were suprised by this, but rewarded me with some GREAT shots and lots of them. Once they realized they didn't need to "get out of my way" they snapped pics like crazy.

Also, I had preordered the CD so we looked for photographers...asked everyone we saw for the "magic" shot; also we have the Disney Visa so we visited the Visa Character greet(twice) and got lots of shots there too.

At the end I was surprised by how many (almost 200) pics we had and when I went to make the photo album, I was in a good number of them...THANKS PHOTOPASS!!!

What took me the longest to learn, was if the photopass guy was there, and I took pics too, then at the end I was spending a ton of time weeding through all the pics to see whose was better.....and really there was not much difference

HAVE FUN!
DJ

[Renfairwedding]

I love the photo pass option. With only two of us we get great shot of both of us in all the right spots. Many times you can ask for a particular shot and they will take it so don't be shy.

Also when it comes time to order the disk you can edit and add the edited shots to the total order without charge.

I ordered the pass before hand and saved the discount.

One last hint.

Get a new photo card each day or every time you return to your room. This way if a card gets lost you don't loose the shots. The card number is the only way of identifying your shots. It dose not matter how many cards you use they will combine them.


Ok two Last hints....

I also laid the cards out on the room table before leaving and used my digital cam to make a copy of the numbers.

Enjoy!!! :mickey:

[Tygger7]

Definitely worth it, especially if you go with the pre-purchase option. We had over 200 pictures and it was so nice not having to pick & choose which ones we wanted to keep...we got them all! Best part, you get a "release" form with the CD and you can take it to Walmart or one of those Kodak picture station and print any pictures you want.

As for ride photos, the only one (so far) that can be put on your Photopass is Test Track at Epcot.

Have a wonderful trip!!

[momofarealprincessf]

Thankyou so Much! I will deffinately go with the Photopass. I'm in Hardly any of our pictures through the year and my husband hates taking pics.
I will also be pre-ordering the cd. Any more advice on cool picturesd the photographers might take that I wouldn't know to ask for?
Have a Great day! :mickey:

[Aggie97]

Definitely pre-order the CD for $100. If you decide not to purchase the CD after your trip, you have a couple weeks to cancel and receive a full refund. We've pre-ordered the CD a few times now and have been very pleased with it.

But -- don't hesitate to ask the photographers to also take a picture with your personal camera at the same time they are taking PhotoPass photos. They always have been happy to do this for us. Granted, we don't ask them to do this if there is a line of people waiting to have their pictures taken after us! :mickey:


Plus all the pics from the rides you can put on your photopass.

Unfortunately Test Track is the only ride that currently offers this option. :(

[AuntDJ]

There is a list somewhere of all the "magic" pics you can ask for but here are the ones I got:

Tinkerbelle in your hands (Magic Kingdom)
Fighting Capt. Hook (Magic Kingdom-by Pirates)
Holding Baby Simba (Animal Kingdom)
Stitch coming out of ground at us(Studios)
Mickey & Friends "Soaring" over us(Epcot)

Also, we posed in front of Tower of Terror(looking frightened); Rock N Roll Rollercoaster (with our best Rock faces).

Just keep an eye open for the vest of photopass reps and ask them to snap away.

We saw one just walking around with pompoms & a basketball, she was taking High School Musical pics...they are cute, posed with the pompoms....I don't think she was asking if you wanted them done, she was looking lost until I asked if she was taking pics.....

And as I was taking a break in Epcot, near Italy, my niece decided to climb a light pole and one was walking by and just started taking her pic, even laid on the ground to get a good angle.

So, keep you card handy...I did take a picture of my card with my personal camera, but only got one card, I cannot imagine keeping up with a new one everyday and the old ones....

We even saw them in random places...but MuppetVision; in front of Pirates...

DJ

[ljv1975]

Another vote for photopass here! :thumbsup:

We would ask every photographer we came across to take our photo. I loved it because all of us were able to be in the photo. It is also nice to be able to enjoy watching your kids with the characters while the photographer worries about taking pictures!

Take a picture of the back of your photopass card with your camera when you get it - or send yourself a text message with the photopass number just in case you lose the card. It's easy to get a new card, but probably hard, if not impossible to access the photos should you lose the card.

All in all we had over 1,000 pics from our last trip after I added the borders and things. I haven't had a problem getting them printed from Target or Shutterfly.

Have a great trip!! :mickey:

[joanna71985]

Photopass is great!! Last summer, I ended up getting 2 of the Photopass CDs. I love doing the pictures with them. Also, I love the special add-in pictures. The ones I did were:
*Tink in hands (MK)
*Fighting Captain Hook (MK)
*Holding Baby Simba (AK)
*Stitch in ground (DHS)
*Sitting Mickey (DHS)
*Sitting Minnie (DHS)
*Stitch with ice cream (DHS)

[g8rgirl29]

We have used photo pass the past 2 years and I really enjoy it. I did notice that there didn't seem to be as many photographers this trip though. Especially at the water parks and EPCOT. We still managed to get over 300 pics taken in 7 days so well worth the pre-order price.

[tinksmom02]

Here's another vote for the PhotoPass! We preordered it before our trip, and while we didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked (no "magic" ones this time), we did get some awesome shots...group shots in front of SSE at Dusk, and an awesome photographer in France did photos of the adults as couples and then some group shots that came out really, really good (just as he promised LOL) By the time I got done editing the pictures, putting some in black and white, adding borders and signatures, we had over 250 pics.

Just another hint, if/when you do purchase the CD, don't bother with the expedited shipping. I ordered the CD on Friday afternoon and UPS says I'll have it by Thursday.

[Tink#64]

One of our favorite pics this trip was at DHS with all of the High School Musical stuff! My DS's 10 & 12 at the time, didn't really want to do it, they thought we we're silly, but it's just the cutest picture! I love going to the PP website & being able to do all of the editing, adding borders, characters, & their autographs, etc! It's a really cool way to really jazz up your pics! I think the PP photographers do an excellent job! :photo:

[Soul_Power]

Yes, I definitely think that's it worth it. My boyfriend and I made it a point to have the Photopass photographers take A LOT of pictures of us when were at the parks and water parks so that we'd get our money's worth! We took some great pictures!

[jwallace378]

I guess I'm in the minority here. I'm not a big fan of the PhotoPass. A little too expensive. But then again, I enjoy photography. So I like taking the pictures myself.

[dsnyfan001]

I would have to say the photopass is awesome, first of all I was just there last week and my camera's memory card broke, I was on the last day of my vaca, and lost every picture, think I had like over 500...but I had my photopass to count on, we did all four parks including mnsshp and I ended up going online and ordering the book for 69.99, there also is one for 49.99 same thing except you cant personalize it. Its so beautiful, First cool thing is you get unlimited pics 20 pages worth for the price, its unbelievable! After 20 pages you have to buy a page for some silly cheap amount of $1.49 or somethin like that, It was worth every penny,Plus I got it 4 days later!! lol you cant beat it! And The neat thing this year is you can also upload your own photos too!! My hub took my broken memory card to try to get it fixed and I was able to get like 427 pics back Now im even happier because I am going to make yet another book with all of my photos! You can even customize them putting borders on them I love this photopass and will continue to use it every time I go. Have fun !:mickey:

[tippy1083]

The photopass sounds really neat! I think we'll be using for our upcoming trip (17 days :mickey:) How do you pre-order to get the discounted rate?

Thanks

By the way:thumbsup:I love the intercot, there is such awesome information out there

[glenpreece]

On my last trip in Jan with my ex, they ended up losing some of our pics. Well he basically pitched a fit (normally I'm the dramatic one lol) and we got the CD for free. We were supposed to be sent an autographed pic of Aladdin and Jasmine but never got it. So keep in mind if they lose your pics insist on a free cd. That just happened to be the one and only time we didn't use his camera.

[Imagineer1981]

We do both. We take photopass pics, and then take them again with our own camera. If the photopass is better, we'll buy it, otherwise just use our own.

[KAT1811]

So if you preorder the CD it is $100 and if you wait until after the trip and order the CD it is $125?

[glenpreece]

So if you preorder the CD it is $100 and if you wait until after the trip and order the CD it is $125?

Exactly, the $125 is the same price as buying it while you at WDW.

[FlaTinkRAMESAM]

Thankyou so Much! I will deffinately go with the Photopass. I'm in Hardly any of our pictures through the year and my husband hates taking pics.
I will also be pre-ordering the cd. Any more advice on cool picturesd the photographers might take that I wouldn't know to ask for?
Have a Great day! :mickey:

My absolute favorite pictures that the photopass has ever done were these gorgeous random shots of my DD right after we had done BBB in Jan 08. She was twirling around the hub by Main Street in front of the castle and there was a photopass guy there and he started to take a couple pictures of her. She was having the absolute best time and I told him we had pre-ordered the CD and so he just kept snappin away. I have this perfect picture of Emmy twirling in her dress with the castle in the background... a-ma-zing. Here are some (http://www.flickr.com/photos/55707445@N00/sets/72157607748132341/) of the pictures -- I don't have all the ones without (or with) edits... if you'd like to see more PM me and I can show you more... so if you see a photopass person, and you see a picture you'd like them to take, just ask!

[FlaTinkRAMESAM]

The photopass sounds really neat! I think we'll be using for our upcoming trip (17 days :mickey:) How do you pre-order to get the discounted rate?

Thanks

By the way:thumbsup:I love the intercot, there is such awesome information out there

Just click here (http://www.disneyphotopass.com/previsitcdplan.aspx).

[Ally'sMom]

:number1:I would have to say do the photopass. I just got done ordering my CD - ended up with 755 pictures after adding borders. The total price I paid was $131.95, so that works out to approx $.17 per picture. I didn't look into ordering it before my trip, but you can't bet that. Now I have all the pictures to do what I what with them. It is just to hard to pick a couple out and order them - especially when they are $12.95 or something like that each!

[Hull-onian]

:welcome: to Intercot.

The answer to your question is yes.

[pixiesmimi]

We had never used the photopass before but decided to preorder the CD last time after someone told me how many that she had gotten on theirs. We ended up with about 500 after I did the editing. This time I will add ours from our camera on there since I just found out about that. We loved it and yes, it is a good deal! I didn't know about all of the magic photos though. The only one they did with us last year was Tink. Since it was our anniversary though, they took lots of "kissing" pictures and things like that. :)

[LoriMistress]

Personally, I think it's worth it. We were able to get about 300 pictures from our 11 day/11 night vacation last year. We used the website to make sure we got $25 off our purchase.

[bkfree]

We bought the PP CD last trip and we were so glad we did.
The pictures were great and the only photos of our family as a group that we got.We ended up with around 100 pics.
Our favorite one was taken at night in front of the fountain in Morroco. We ended up using it as our Christmas card that year.
One evening we always split up and daughter and I go off together and Dad and son and this way we get great pics of each "couple" during the night.
This trip we are going to play a game called
"Never say No" which means to never pass up a Photopass Photographer without a picture. We are going to try and see how many we can get on the CD.
I do also take pics of my own with my digital camera, but these are more spontaneus action shots and not posed pics.
I will pre order the CD this time.
For those of you that have done that, what do they send you as proof that you have prepurchased it?
Thanks

[Tbelle1976]

I would also have to say that it's definately worth it. There were many more family photos than what we had prior to the Photo Pass. Before I always concentrated on making sure I had the kids in the pics, but it's nice to have many more photos of all of us.

[etibbetts]

We did the photopass for the first time on our trip last month, and it was well worth the $$. We pre paid for it and split the cost among the two parties in our group. Then we each had our photopass cards and loaded them to the account. After all the edits, adding borders, we had 400 pictures. We loaded them all to snapfish from the CD and ordered them for $.09 each. Well worth it! We had the tink pictures done at MK and Epcot, they were fun.

I would definetely recommend doing the photopass and making it a point to stop and get pictures done everytime you see a photopass photographer. Its a lot of fun and you will really enjoy the results!

[momofarealprincessf]

:mickey: Intercot is awesome! I am DEFFINATELY using photopass now and will pre purchase the cd. I'm excited about the "special effects" pictures.
Thankyou so Much to all who responded to my question. You are an awesome group of people!
May the Magic be with You!

[pixiesmimi]

We bought the PP CD last trip and we were so glad we did.
The pictures were great and the only photos of our family as a group that we got.We ended up with around 100 pics.
Our favorite one was taken at night in front of the fountain in Morroco. We ended up using it as our Christmas card that year.
One evening we always split up and daughter and I go off together and Dad and son and this way we get great pics of each "couple" during the night.
This trip we are going to play a game called
"Never say No" which means to never pass up a Photopass Photographer without a picture. We are going to try and see how many we can get on the CD.
I do also take pics of my own with my digital camera, but these are more spontaneus action shots and not posed pics.
I will pre order the CD this time.
For those of you that have done that, what do they send you as proof that you have prepurchased it?
Thanks

They will email you a receipt. I can't remember if they send you a number or not. You don't need that at the parks. Just get a photopass card and start using it. But when you get back, you just put the number(s) of your photopass(es) in. You look at your photos and edit and save them. Then they upload all of this to a CD and mail it to you. I think you have a certain length of time to return it and get your money back if you don't like them. It has been a while so I can't remember all the details. But you only have, I think, 30 days to do this. They will remind you before the time is up.