Hey everyone, it's Jacqueline for Pixie Dust PhD. In this video we are going to
talk about my purchase of Memory Maker for our Walt Disney World trip back in fall 2021,
and if I thought it was worth it even without the characters--stay tuned!
Previously on this channel we have gone over the basics of Memory Maker. If you haven't seen that
video yet I will leave a link in the description down below. If you want more details definitely
check out that video, otherwise we'll do just a brief overview now. So Memory Maker is $169 if
you purchase it more than three days in advance of when you want your pictures to start. Otherwise,
if you say in the middle of your vacation or you’re at home and you decide hey I actually
want all my pictures, then it's $199. Whether you pay the $169 or the $199 this entitles you to all
of your PhotoPass pictures. This includes your on ride photos, and any other PhotoPass pictures
you get around those areas of interest in the parks. Plus when you take PhotoPass pictures you
may get magic shots and those are also included. Then of course any PhotoPass pictures taken with
characters are included. When I was at the parks [in] fall of 2021 there were distance characters.
They weren't really meet and greets per se, but characters were out and about and you could wave
and say hi and take selfies, that kind of thing. But there were no PhotoPass cast members there.
Now, as of when I’m filming this, the situation of character meet and greets in the parks is still
evolving. There are now some indoor character meet and greets where you stand in a line,
you sort of get your turn, but it is still somewhat distant. Like you cannot hug Mickey
right now. That could change; that could be false by the time this gets posted. And as of right now
when I’m filming for the most part there are not PhotoPass cast members with these characters.
Occasionally you will see them, but it's pretty rare. It's definitely not like it used to be where
more or less at every indoor meet and greet area, if you stood in a line to meet a character,
there would be a PhotoPass photographer. For now, as of when I’m filming this, we certainly
haven't gotten back to that point of character meet and greets with PhotoPass photographers.
Therefore, when I was there in fall of 2021 and character meet and greets were very very
slimmed down--it was just that distant situation and there was no PhotoPass cast member--that
means that buying Memory Maker came with only those on-ride photos and photos around the parks,
definitely no character photos. In the past it was easy for me to justify Memory Maker because I love
meeting characters, and you always get basically at least six if not more photos per character;
so that adds up really fast. But for fall 2021 that was no longer an option. During this trip
we basically did 10 and a half days. So we had 10 days of park tickets and then on a separate
day we had Boo Bash at night. I did buy Memory Maker in advance for $169, so that Memory Maker
covered all 10 and a half of these park days. At the end of the trip I ended up with 520 files,
though it's worth noting that some are duplicates because both my partner and I had magic bands so
when the long range RFID links up a picture, particularly on rides, we would often get two
pictures--one for me, one for my partner. These files consisted of photos and videos from rides,
being around the park, magic shots, as well as these pre-loaded professional pictures.
For our Boo Bash night we did enter the park prior to party starting, so we did get some PhotoPass
pictures prior to the Boo Bash exclusive pictures. Once this after hours party did start we hunted
down some of those Boo Bash exclusive PhotoPass pictures around the park, and we rode some rides,
so we got those on-ride photos as well. For on-ride photos we did our best to make sure
that they did hit our account, though there were a couple missing. I will say that I have always had
problems with Frozen Ever After and Pirates of the Caribbean linking up to my account.
But the on ride photos are a great way to save those memories. The most on-ride photos are
over at Magic Kingdom of course, but you still do have some offerings at Hollywood Studios, EPCOT,
and Animal Kingdom. Since we knew PhotoPass cast members were not going to be with characters,
we put a larger emphasis on getting those pictures taken around the parks at points of interest.
I realize “points of interest” is fairly vague, so let's go over that briefly. At Magic Kingdom
you can usually find PhotoPass cast members at the train station, all up and down Main Street, U.S.A
to get all those castle shots, around the hub, we were lucky enough to find PhotoPass cast members
at the entrance of Adventureland--I don't think they're there all the time but that was a fun
shot, and you'll often find them on the bridge to Tomorrowland though we didn't snag any there this
trip. In Animal Kingdom there's basically always at least one PhotoPass cast member in Pandora,
there is a shot in front of Everest--it's not right at the ride but basically with
Everest in the background--that there's almost always a PhotoPass cast member there as well,
then of course you have the Tree of Life being the icon of the park, the park entrance, and there's
like a lion king sculpture that there's usually a PhotoPass cast member there. Over at Hollywood
Studios you'll find PhotoPass cast members sprinkled around Star Wars Galaxy's Edge:
of course in front of the Millennium Falcon, that one's super popular; but you'll also sometimes
find them in front of the tie fighter, and then I think this technically might be a little bit
outside of Galaxy's Edge but there's a huge AT-AT or “AT-AT” and you can sometimes find a PhotoPass
cast member there. Then there's PhotoPass cast member station around the rest of the
park too outside of Galaxy's Edge. You'll find a few up and down Sunset Boulevard typically,
and sometimes one in front of the Chinese Theater depending on what's going on during the day.
There's often a PhotoPass cast member near center stage to take your picture with the
Hollywood Studios sign, that's a classic. And then you'll almost always find at least one PhotoPass
opportunity in Toy Story land, it's often at the entrance to the land with the giant Woody. Plus
sometimes you'll find them around Echo Lake, and then of course the park entrance. In EPCOT you're
going to find PhotoPass cast members stationed around World Showcase at the various pavilions.
We were lucky enough to get France, Japan, Italy, and Norway. And frankly there's pretty much
always someone at least in France. And with the Ratatouille area newly opened there's often
someone back in that area by the big fountain too. Then of course there's a ton of Spaceship Earth
pictures available for you both during the day and at night; these are near the park entrance. And if
there is a festival going on often there will be PhotoPass cast member near that festival sign.
Like I said, we made seeking out these photos at these points of interest around the park a
priority, and we were able to get a vast majority of the ones I’ve listed here.
You can also always check out the app. Instead of looking at wait times you can
select PhotoPass and that will show you where PhotoPass cast members should be in the park.
And in my experience if it's holiday time you'll also sometimes find PhotoPass cast members in the
resorts, particularly like the Grand Floridian to take your picture with that giant beautiful tree.
While you're collecting these pictures at the points of interest you may also get magic shots
that include characters. So here are just a few that we snagged. These rotate somewhat frequently,
so if you're not going down to the parks all the time it is fun to go and collect
different characters. Like this was our first time with WALL-E. Then there are other magic shots,
which I don't really know what to call other than frames. Essentially they take your picture,
and it stays normal, but they impose it in a fun frame in a background with like Mickey
or balloons or something else. And finally they turn some of these magic shots into video scenes,
which is super fun. And again these do change seasonally, so it's fun to collect them all. New
to me were these tiny world PhotoPass shots. They basically have a ball with a bunch of cameras on
it I believe, and then your group stands around the ball and it takes photos very quickly around
the circle. And so you get this like tiny world effect. In my case, it was just my partner and
I. I think it looks much cooler if you have a larger group. These are definitely new fun
types of pictures, and again they're included with Memory Maker. And in the past few years
they've introduced super zoom shots. So there will be a camera very far away, it will zoom in
take a picture, of you zoom out to get the rest of the landscape of the park. You do get the actual
individual picture, but what's really cool is the videos. And finally when you purchase Memory Maker
it comes loaded with what I’m calling professional pictures. Essentially Disney has given you really
crisp, high quality pictures of fireworks, icons, characters, and other things that they think of
are interest. This way you don't have to get the perfect fireworks shot, because Disney's already
given one to you. Looking at the breakdown of our pictures and videos per day, and I tried to remove
the duplicates from this, we basically had about 470 total. And any given day ranged from only five
pictures or so to over a hundred. So as you can see depending on the type of day we were having,
the use of PhotoPass varied a lot for us. But with about 472 files that means that at the price
I paid, $169 in advance, each picture only cost about 36 cents. In comparison, if you didn't buy
Memory Maker but you did still take PhotoPass pictures around the parks and then you decided
you wanted to buy one, a single digital download of one picture costs $16.95. If you ask me, 36
cents per picture looks pretty good in comparison. Also, at that price of $16.95 per digital download
you only need to really want to keep 10 to 12 of those photos that you take throughout your
vacation to make Memory Maker monetarily worth it. Aside from normal Memory Maker, which applies to
the length of your trip, they also sell a product called Memory Maker One Day. So normal Memory
Maker again applies to the length of your trip and is $169 or $199 depending on when you buy it;
Memory Maker One Day, as the name implies, applies to only one day of your trip, and is $69.
Again, single digital downloads are going to be $16.95. So from one single day of your trip of
getting a lot of these PhotoPass pictures you only need about four or five to make One Day monetarily
worth it. So maybe you don't want to purchase the $169 to $199 package for your entire trip,
but maybe there's one day where you'll be at the Magic Kingdom or an after hours party or
some special event and you know you'll be taking a lot of pictures. That's the day you prioritize
taking pictures. Consider Memory Maker One Day instead. For example, if we look at my
trip and pretend I hadn't purchased the general Memory Maker in advance for $169 and I got home
looked at my files decided “well actually, I like kind of a lot of these”, I could look at Memory
Maker One Day. Our Boo Bash night was particularly special in terms of the photos that we got. Though
I only had about 37 unique files, this would have been about $1.87 per picture. That cost again is
much better than $16.95 per digital download. In contrast, if we look at one of the days where we
ended up going to three parks kind of on accident, we took a ton of pictures--it was over 100 easily,
well Memory Maker One Day would have made a lot of sense for that. In that case, I’d only be paying
55 cents per picture for Memory Maker One Day and then I would get all 127 files, instead of
having to pick and choose to buy only one or two at $16.95 per digital download. For me,
even without the characters this was definitely worth it. Obviously, we were on a long trip;
we had 10 and a half days worth of park tickets, so I knew even without characters that we would
have a decent amount of files to take home with us for $169 total. The thing I love about PhotoPass
is we always get to be in pictures together. It's not me having to take pictures of my partner,
and them having to take pictures of me. Or us taking selfies together but with limited
background because our arms are only so long, and selfie sticks are banned.
It's also professional level photography, so the pictures come out looking really great.
But of course we realize that to take advantage of Memory Maker it does take time. You have to seek
out the photos. You have to go on the rides that do have on ride photos. And then for those photos
at points of interest around the parks, well there are lines. It's not an instant situation.
To me though these memories are worth it. But is it worth it for you? That's something only you
can decide. I would say the main question comes down to do you value having those picture and
video memories enough to budget in advance to pay for Memory Maker? $169 absolutely is not cheap,
but if you want your whole group together in professional level pictures and videos it could be
worth it for you. I am looking forward to getting PhotoPass cast members back at characters because
then I know I won't even hesitate. But of course, because we were on such a long trip I knew that we
would get enough pictures to make this worth it anyway. For a shorter trip say if it's only two,
three, four days maybe you go with Memory Maker One Day. And if you're traveling with parties
outside of your immediate family or whoever you share financial responsibilities with,
you can split this up between groups, which makes the financial burden much easier to swallow and
probably more worth it. But at the end of the day I just love having these memories of me and
my partner, and I can't really imagine not buying Memory Maker. Plus it's so fun to hunt down the
new types of photos, like those tiny worlds, and the new magic shots. Let me know what you think
in the comments down below! And if you have any questions I’d be happy to help you out. If you
want to chat about this outside of YouTube you can find me on Twitter and Instagram @PixieDustPhD.
I hope the rest of your day is super magical, and we'll see you real soon at Pixie Dust PhD.