Recently my family traveled to Disneyland and for the first time ever, we ventured there having pre-bought the Photo Pass Plus card. I was hesitant as I take a lot of my own pictures and to be fair I didn’t know if I’d get nearly enough pictures to make it worth the $70 price tag. Plus I wasn’t sure I wanted to be in the pictures so often. That may be why I take the role of photographer in our own trips. But I said, what the heck, let’s try it out.
My favorite part of the whole Photo Pass Plus Experience I had was when I got to go on Radiator Springs Racers a second time. I know you wonder what one has to do with the other? One of the added benefits of the Photo Pass Plus card is that all your ride pictures are stored on your card for you. Well when we finally had our turn to ride, we enjoyed the ride so much that we were that much more excited to have a keepsake photo. When we went to add it to our card, we were told that the photo had a “safety violation” in it. Having no idea what that meant, and knowing that the likelihood of getting back onto the ride was slim to none, we went to guest services where they gave us a special Fast Pass for all of us to ride again. Mission Accomplished, I was able to ride Radiator Springs Racers twice, one during the day and again at night, plus had a great photo keepsake.
Between the two parks, know that California Adventure has far more of the PhotoPass Photographers available to take shots. Whenever we showed our Photo Pass Plus Card, the photographers almost always went out of their way to get us not only a great number of pictures, but truly unique ones as well. We had one great photographer on Route 66 in Cars Land who must have taken close to 25 pictures of my family. Facing different directions and even a series of “action” shots with us pretending to be driving down Route 66, swerving and sliding around corners. The photo’s are hilarious to our own family, although not likely to anyone else, and we still laugh every time we see them.
In addition to Photo Pass Photographers and Ride Photos, you also have all your character meal pictures included in the purchase price. We received our Ariel’s Grotto pictures quickly and easily, and they actually threw in both a family picture as well as one of just my son with Princess Ariel.
The cost of the Disneyland Photo Pass Plus card is $69.95 when pre-purchased. ($149.95 for Walt Disney World version). The value you can get out of this card is up to you. We filled an entire CD with pictures and memories in 2 days at the parks. I can say from experience that when you show your card, you are definitely given extra attention and a few perks that you didn’t even know about.
I truly encourage you to learn more and to make the Photo Pass Plus Card a Disneyland Must. Visit Here to see more information.
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We purchased the PP+ for this trip. Not sure what to expect but thought we would give it a try. It did yield us the photos in print form from the restaurants (as well as digital) and digital ride photos. As with any service, you have people who love their job and excel and others who are putting in their time. We received some excellent shots, candid photos and character insert pics. We also received some horrible work by so-called photographers who did not wait until the girls were posed or smile. We have shots of their backs and side. These are children. They poke each other and fight over what spot they will stand in and then you have to coax them to smile. Some impatient ones would go 1-2-3 your done. Done, I hadn’t even gotten to the picture spot yet. Those photos are awful! The Asian man who took multiple photos of us all at the Gaston statue is to be commended as is the older Asian lady at Hollywood Studios. I have beautiful pictures from both of them. An older man tired his best to get my middle granddaughter to smile at Animal Kingdom for the Tree of Life pic but to no avail. Still the pic in general is good and I have to commend his efforts. When she is having a “fit” there is no hope. The others tried to add effects but apparently did not know what they were doing so we have some very strange shots. Others are off center or out of balance. Not what you expect from a professional service. At the same time, Coda was chosen for the POC show and we were given a card with over 100 pics on it. Nice perk!!!! The package extras are very nice. Wish the border options were available all the time and not selected by picture. I found places I wanted some that I had seen in early editing and that just were not available for that pic. Overall, I like the service. Looking forward to my CD. Having to still purchase all the other pics and items is still expensive. This is a nice perk but not a coverall deal as one may anticipate.
To add… The Disney Photo Pass is awesome if you are with a big group or if you happen to have multiple familes and/or friends who are going around the same time. You can add as many disney photo passes (the standard passes you can pick up from and Disney photopass cast member) to your package as you want. We have bought the photopass when my wife takes her students for their class trip. This allows every student to at least get as many photo’s with characters and in front of the castle as they want. Unfortunately right now they can’t easily (there is a work around) get their ride pictures on it. But by the end of the trip we can have over 50 photopasses and add everyone of those added to our photopass cd. Also if you are a frequent visitor, there is a way to have as much as 2 months of visits. The parts that make it a plus (attractions and maybe the character meals) can only be within a 15 day window, but the rest of your disney photopasses can be over 2 months. Just make sure you don’t add your photopass pictures from your first trip until the last day possible (30 days from when the first picture was taken) and then add the rest of your photo’s over time and request your cd within 30 days of when you added your first photopass cards (60 days from when your first photo was taken). And if you are just about to go on one more trip, you can always pay, I think it’s $15, to have your pictures extended for 15 more days which means you could have 75 days to get multiple trips in with one package and the $15. And now you have multiple trips with one CD. And to be clear, you can fill up as many CD’s as you want according to one cast member I talked with, but we have never filled up more than 1 CD.