Memory Maker (Photopass)

[chilly2336]

We have been to WDW many times and just returned from a 5-day trip yesterday. We did purchase Photopass (Memory Maker) for this trip although we did so reluctantly knowing we may not get our money's worth. Needless to say we were extremely disappointed.

We purchased early enough to get the discount and it still was not worth it. The amount of photographers in the parks is GREATLY reduced. Whether or not that is the fault of Disney is debatable - are they efforting to hire more photographers and cannot find them or are they satisfied with minimal staffing to save money? Not sure any of us know the answer to that but trust me when I say photographers in the parks are scarce. Just as one example we entered Magic Kingdom twice in the morning between 9:30-10:00 and there were exactly zero photographers in front of the train station. We have that picture from every family trip we have taken until this one.

Now with the mask requirement back in place on all attractions, if ANYONE in your ride vehicle does not have their mask covering their mouth and nose the picture will be deleted. While not pleased with this policy we fully complied as we truly love going to WDW and are happy to have them open again. However, we ran into this on multiple occasions while riding in vehicles that seat more than 5 people as other groups either didn't know about pictures being deleted or didn't care. It even came to the point where we had to be the ones to try to enforce the policy as members of our family would politely let other groups know that the picture would be deleted if masks weren't worn properly. We were fortunate that no one took offense but it certainly put us in very awkward positions.

I know you are able to go into the Photopass locations inside the parks and ask them to locate the picture to try to get it restored but we experienced multiple times that the pictures were not there. We were then given a business card with a phone number to call that is the official mask enforcer for Disney photography and we have to ask them to see if they would pretty please restore it for us.

My wife is now on the phone with them as she is not able to add borders, enhancements, etc via our desktop as she has done for all of our prior trips. She just told me that she was told they no longer have the feature available on the website as it was causing it to crash. You can only do these things now on a mobile device where obviously screens are much smaller. It is amazing to me that a company that promotes itself as creating so much magic can have such an awful IT department. I'm sure that has been covered in separate threads.

To summarize, this is completely not worth the hassle. We definitely do not feel like we got enough pictures with our full face showing to make this worth the money. Others may feel differently but this is our opinion.

 

[Sargeant Tibbs]

I agree there was a noticeable lack of photographers in the parks. This time around we bought MM mainly for our Capture Your Moment photo session, so for that and the other few pictures we managed to get we felt we were able to get the value from it, but if we hadn't done CYM I would have been very disappointed.

 

[rlk]

When we were there at the end of July, the train station was still completely under a wrap. I assumed that was why we didn’t see a photo pass photographer out front any of our MK days.

 

[bluezy]

I would be frustrated with the lack of photographers and the ride pictures as well. I understand why they delete the photos where people aren't properly wearing their masks, but it's really not fair (financially) to those who have paid for MM and *are* following the rules. I wish they'd just pay some DCP CMs to simply blur the faces of the non compliant guests on those pictures.

As far as the borders and enhancements, that changed at least 2 years ago. I know it was still available on desktop after our 2018 trip, but I remember that it was changed to only mobile devices (and at a significantly reduced selection of borders/enhancements) well before our scheduled 2020 trip (that was cancelled because the parks weren't open). I was still going to purchase MM for that trip because we easily get 20+ ride photos so it's still well worth the cost for us just based on that, but I was disappointed that I probably wasn't going to be able to do all the enhancements I was used to doing as I know I'll get frustrated trying to do it on my phone. Between the ride photos, posed photos, and random casual photos (I love when a photographer captures a "moment") I usually end up with 800+ photos from our trips.

We had one trip back in 2009 where it rained for hours on end every day of our stay. The photographers were virtually non-existent on that trip. I had pre-purchased MM (or whatever it was called back then) and despite us trying to seek out photographers during the brief hours of sunshine that week, we only ended up with 7 photos. I didn't download any of them and contacted Disney to ask for a refund/credit. They were happy to credit the pre-purchase back to our MM account so that we could use it on our next trip (in 2011). I don't know if they still offer a "money back satisfaction guarantee", but if you haven't downloaded any pictures yet and you don't really care if you keep any of them, it might be worth contacting Disney and asking about a refund/credit.

 

[nurseberta]

Can I ask what is Capture your moment?

 

[rajak73]

Can I ask what is Capture your moment?

Commemorate your celebration with a photo session in a Magic Kingdom park setting including a view of iconic Cinderella Castle.

On the Disneyworld site, go to "things to do" then on to "Enchanting extras collections" scroll down to "Capture your moment"

 

[chelleb1974]

Can anyone comment about the availability/lack of photopass photographers now? We are going the end of November and wondering if Memory Maker is still worth it?