If you are planning a Disney World vacation you may be asking yourself: “So what is this Disney Photopass thing?”
The answer is both simple and complicated.
Simply photopass is a photography service set up by Disney throughout the parks as well as at some resorts where you can have a Disney photographer take pictures with a professional camera which are than uploaded to a “cloud” and scanned onto your Photopass card (a free credit card sized card with a bar code and unique number sequence on the back). You can have the card scanned multiple times and purchase pictures from your trip at Disney and off the computer once you get home by using the scanned card.
More complicated is factoring in the price- is it WORTH it to order your photopass CD or buy pictures? That is where it comes down to preference. What is great about the Photopass photogs is that if you let them take your pictures and scan your card they will almost always take one with your personal handheld camera as well. They are also at the best photo spots in the parks. Personally, I find that I NEVER regret pre-purchasing the CD. It saves you $50 off of the usual price of $150 and you can come home, add signatures and borders, and then create as many different variations of images as possible. In a four day trip my husband and I came home with over 300 pictures not counting the duplicates I created with borders!
Some rides (like Test Track) and on certain tours (like Animal Kingdom’s new Wild Africa Trek) you will have a photographer with you or be able to scan your card to add your picture to your account. Each park also has a “special” picture or two where you will be posed in a certain way and have animated friends added to your images when you look at them later (we’ve gotten Tinkerbell, Stitch, Simba, Mickey & Donald hang gliding, and a bunch of balloons carrying us away).
When push comes to shove the bottom line is that you know your family best and how you take pictures so think about what you would gain and how you would use those images later before you make your final call!
If your not into Photopass check out our Top 5 Tips for Great Ride Photos or Learn to Theme your Park Photos.
Melissa of Picturing Disney and Chip and Co.
Right now Chip and Co and I are giving away a free $25 Disney Gift Card to celebrate the New Year. Head over to Chip and Company and enter. While you there stay for the best in Disney Park News, Planning Tips, Giveaways and More!
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- Disney World Quick Tips – Don’t Visit Walt Disney World Through A Viewfinder (chipandco.com)
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
I pre purchased the photo pass cd for the first time on our last trip in september. It was the best choice I have ever made. I take a lot of photos myself but I found that the photopass photographers got so many great shots that I missed or at a better angle. Like my 4 year old daughter kissing prince eric on the cheek. I missed that shot but they got it… Worth every penny. We are going back in 18 days and i already pre purchased the cd :). The best part is if you find you aret satisfiedwith the photos you can get a full refund
We went in October with my parents. We got a photo pass cd plus one extra copy of it ( for about 20-30 dollars more) we then split the cost so we only spent about 80 each for almost 400 photos for each of us.
Is there something like this on the cruise or do they include photos taken there with the PhotoPass? My first Disney cruise in 10 years is in a few days! I already preordered the PhotoPass CD for our time at the parks. So excited!
Are the pictures that are taken while you are on rides screaming included in this?
You should take s picture if your photo pass so if you loose it when you get home you have the numbers.
Does Disneyland offer this, and how do you prepurchase it, we are going June 12th
Disneyland does offer this as I just got home from a 1 day trip there. I was going to prepurchase but couldn’t find a place to do so but it ended up being only $99 when I got home (not sure if that’s cause it was a 1 day trip or if DL Photopass is just that price). They do have coupons so I got a 20% discount when I did order (I waited a few weeks to order and they kept sending me different offers).
For Disney World, you have to prebuy to get the savings. If you take photos today and try to buy tomorrow, there is a pop up window that you have to read to make sure you understand that only photos taken AFTER the purchase date can be added.
Prebuy link: http://www.disneyphotopass.com/previsitoffer.aspx
I have done for the past trips and and love it. Another hint is to be sure to save the photos in the size you want. For example, if you want to print the photo of you and Mickey, with a border (you can add on the website) in an 8×10, you need to save the photo as an 8×10 or the border will get cut off.
Also, if there is a picture that is important, take it multiple times with different photographers. I can’t stress this enough. I have had blurry photos and overexposed night photos and once at home, there isn’t too much you can do about it.
The screaming ride photos were not included last Nov. when I went. Test Track is the only one we added. (didn’t ride the AK ride)
Love, love, love the photopass CD. Would prepurchase again. First of all, the family photographer can also be in the photos so you can get a lot of pics of your whole group. Secondly, I watched one father tell the photopass photographer that they had already prepurchased the CD so go ahead and take any extra photos they wanted to try. The photographer appeared to take a lot more photos of that child.
I was also able to get a ton of “magic shots” and fun poses just by asking the photopass photographer for ideas. I would also add that if there is a special photo that you are hoping to get, for instance everyone in front of the castle, make sure you ask a few different photopass photographers to take that pic. The skills of the photographers can vary and you are more likely to get a GREAT pic if you have a couple of photographers taking it. I considered the CD a wonderful souvenir of our trip.
Thanks for this post. It reminded me that I didn’t add the pre-purchase price to my fund goal. I just added $50 (my mother and I will split it). We did the photopass when we took our first trip and had something like 300 photos without even trying.
I was very glad I bought the photopass on our last trip. Our camera was lost at the end of our vacation and the photopass pictures are the only ones I have left.
Just came back from a week at WDW and we didn’t end up with that many pictures. the lines were long, and the kids did not want to stop for photos. So we ended up with less than 50 pictures, so I am not going to buy the cd. BUT we have tons of great pics the photopass folks took with our camera so we are ok there!! I have to say I love the service, when we went to Universal we kept looking for the Disney photopass photographer!! We will buy a few of our favorites from the photopass and use the ones they took with our camera for the rest. This is an awesome service, and if we had not gone when the parks were fully packed we would have used it more. Also, our kids are teenagers and the cooperation level for photos does go down as the kids get older.
In October, my husband & I went to Epcot center (for just a day) and then hopped on a Disney Cruise. We got the best photos ever!
I purchased just 3 photos from Epcot – they were $10 per download (look for specials right on the Disney photo site). We only took 13 pictures on our pass, so it wasn’t worth buying the CD. When we go back with kids, I will definitely get the CD if their are enough good photos.
On the Disney Cruise, your room key is also your photo pass. We took 74 really good photos over the 4 days. I love the CD. It was $200, but the photos look like we were on our honeymoon instead of our 20th wedding anniversary. I had no problem sending the pics to Walmart and using them for my Christmas cards. We did white backgrounds, and other screened backgrounds, & we did different days with different outfits. A few photos are with characters. 2 nights they photographed our meals. Our friends buy cruise photos for their kids instead of the school ones.
I have never purchased the CD, because we always take our own camera and the PhotoPass people always take a picture with our camera. I have even had them change settings on my camera to make the pictures come out looking more professional, and they looked great! Then I just send the pictures to Target when I get home and I have tons of very inexpensive pictures! I see no reason to spend $100 on something you don’t really need. The best family pictures we have ever had done (including professional portraits) were pictures the photopass photographers took with our camera.
I have had the same experience and never seen the value in PhotoPass for our family, especially when Walgreens and other photo printers offer deals on printing and I can get my photos (like our 2011 trip) totally free. Plus the PhotoPass pictures look almost identical to the ones on my camera, since they essentially just switch cameras mid-pose with the characters. Plus if you want any shots of some of the landmarks on the way in to the parks at rope drop or out at closing there always seem to be tremendous lines of people waiting for the few photographers who are there. But I think photopass is a great idea. Because we don’t pay for internet while we’re in WDW and can’t email pics, we call home on the first night and have someone there log in to our photopass account so they can see pictures from the day without us ever having to search for Wi-Fi to email them!
Photo pass is a awesome, just remember that they do expire if you don’t order stuff from them right away or continue using the webpage on a regular basis. Also, photos taken with your personal camera may not be the same quality as the ones taken for Photopass!.