Disney sells a lot of things that cost too much. Photos, weirdly, aren’t one of them.
I’ve said for a while that PhotoPass is by far the best deal in the whole Disney World catalog, so I went and tested my own claim. The product is now called Memory Maker, and as of the October 6 price changes it runs $185 if you buy at least three days ahead, or $210 once you’re there. A one-day version went from $75 to $85. That’s the whole menu, and for the full-trip versions Disney held the price.
Here’s what $185 buys. Every photo a Disney photographer takes of your group, every ride photo, and the Magic Shots, which are the ones with the fireworks or the ghost in the frame that only a PhotoPass photographer can set up. Disney’s own page says it also covers photos from more than 40 character greetings. Everyone you link to your account can download too, so grandma gets her copies without paying anything.
Now the comparison. Planning sites put a single digital download at roughly $15 to $17 apiece. Do the division and Memory Maker pays for itself at about a dozen photos. A family of four hitting one park, riding two coasters and posing with Mickey will blow past that before lunch. That’s before the photographer at the castle who will happily take forty shots until someone isn’t blinking.
Compare it to the other stuff Disney wants your money for. I wrote about Disney’s per-hour math, and Lightning Lane Multi Pass runs somewhere between $15 and $45 per person per day depending on the park and the date, which for four people on a busy day is a hundred bucks or more to skip some lines for a few hours. I also looked at what a character meal costs a family of four. Those spend the money and leave you with a memory and a stomachache. Memory Maker leaves you with the actual pictures.
The catches are real, though, and Disney doesn’t shout them. Your photos are available for 45 days after they’re taken, so you have to download them or they’re gone for good. The package covers photos taken within 30 days of when you activate it. Buy in advance and anything shot in the three days before your purchase isn’t included. It’s nonrefundable. And meet-and-greets run by a character attendant with no PhotoPass photographer don’t count, so use your phone there.
Also, I’ll admit the obvious. Your phone takes perfectly good photos. If your family hates posing and never wants to see a single picture, $185 is $185 you could have spent on a churro habit. The deal is only good if you actually collect the photos, which means opening the app on day two instead of day forty-six.
But think about who’s in the pictures. Everybody in the same frame at once, which almost never happens when one of you is holding the phone. That’s the part a Lightning Lane can’t give you, and it’s why I’d cut the Lightning Lane before I’d cut this.
So is it “absolutely by far” the best deal Disney sells? On the numbers, it’s the one add-on where the price per item drops the more you use it, instead of the other way around. For most families that’s a yes.
My two cents: buy it early, link everybody, and download the photos before day 45 sneaks up on you.