There are literally thousands of Disney planning websites out there with more Disney tips and tricks than I could ever imagine let alone write about. I wrote a very few of my own tips and take-aways for each park at the end of each blog and here I will just offer two reviews and one word of wisdom.
On this trip we purchased Memory Maker and the Disney Dining Plan, both of which were new to us. I researched them both extensively beforehand and hopefully sharing my experience can help someone else make their own decision.
Memory Maker
At first glance, Disney’s photo products are a little confusing because they refer to both PhotoPass and Memory Maker and people often use the terms interchangeably. Disney PhotoPass simply refers to the service that lets you view, download and purchase the photos that are taken by any of the park photographers. Everyone automatically has a PhotoPass account. When you have your picture taken, have the photographer scan your Magic Band and the picture will be loaded to your account. This service is entirely free and you are under no obligation to purchase any of the pictures.
Memory Maker is a photo package that you can purchase to give you digital copies of all your PhotoPass photos. If you purchase it ahead of your trip you can save $30 ($169 vs. $199). We purchased it ahead of time and absolutely got our money’s worth.
One huge benefit of Memory Maker is that you can easily get pictures of your entire family. (We all know that most families have a designated family photographer who hardly ever appears in any photos!) We have more complete family photos from our trip to Disney World than we do from the previous 3 years of holidays and trips combined.
Another big benefit – you get all of your ride photos! These are so fun to have and most amusement parks will charge you about $25 each for a printed copy of their ride photos. Having digital copies of every PhotoPass ride we went on was amazing. As you exit each ride, simply find your photo on one of the screens and scan your Magic Band to load the picture to your account. (Seven Dwarfs Mine Train makes it even easier – they use your Magic Band to locate you on the ride and automatically load your pictures to your account, no scanning required.)
With Memory Maker, you can download your pictures as they are taken (to your phone, for example) or wait until you get home and download them onto your computer (or both!). Photos expire in 45 days so make sure you download them within that time period. During those 45 days you also have the ability to add different borders, stickers, and logos to your pictures. I downloaded the clean copies of my pictures, as well as multiple edited versions with different overlays. They were so fun to play around with. (If you feel better having a hard copy backup of your photos, CDs are also available for purchase afterwards.)
We also got great customer service from Memory Maker. When we got home and checked out all our photos, I found that our family photos in front of the Tree of Life in Animal Kingdom were missing. I provided them the date and rough time we had the photo taken and sent them another photo of us so they could see what we looked like and what we were wearing that day. Within 48 hours the pictures were located and loaded to my account. Hooray!
While the relative value of this product is dependent on the number of days you are there and the number of pictures you take, with only 3.5 park days we absolutely got our money’s worth. Between park photos, ride photos and character meetings, we had over 100 photos in that short amount of time without even seeking out photographers other than for the obligatory family photo in each park. There are tons of photo opportunities and the quality of the PhotoPass photos is impressive. I am so happy to have added these unique photos to my own photos from the trip.
Disney Dining Plan
This service wasn’t quite as cut and dry for me in terms of its value. We were not visiting Disney during one of its “Free Dining” promotions so I had to do some major calculations to determine if it would be worth it. Once I selected all of our characters meals, I ran the numbers about two dozen different ways and it always seemed to come out in our favor. We fell into that magical sweet spot for Disney Dining – the general rule of thumb seems to be if you have kids under 10 and go to several character meals, you can come out ahead on the dining plan. From a numbers perspective, I was confident that buying the dining plan was the right decision. And since I am a numbers person, I went ahead and added it to our trip.
Looking back on it after the trip, I am still confident that the numbers did in fact come out in our favor. But here’s the problem… it totally stressed me out. The main problem with the dining plan is that it is based on nights stayed and not on park days. So for someone who plans to go to the park on their arrival and departure days, they come up a day short of meals and snacks. So at every quick service meal, I was silently calculating in my head to figure out “is this one of the meals we should pay cash for?” Pay cash too soon and you may waste a credit on a cheaper meal later or even end up with unused credits. But use them up too early and you’re stuck paying cash for everything at the end of your trip and may feel like you have to stick to cheap meals since you already paid for the dining plan. There are entire websites that analyze your “best value” meals and snacks on the dining plan and people plan their meals according to them, sometimes even buying things they don’t like as much just because they are more expensive and therefore have a higher perceived value.
Personally I hated thinking about all that, but I’m a numbers person and just couldn’t let it go. So for that reason, I probably won’t get the dining plan again. I’d rather pay a little more out of pocket to have what I want when I want it without having to do any mental math to determine if it is the right deal. But since my boys will be over 10 and most likely not interested in character meals whenever we visit next, it is probably a moot point anyway.
Final Word of Advice
Don’t overplan.
It is so easy to get wrapped up in Disney planning. It is an expensive trip and you want to have the best experience possible. The amount of things to do in each of the parks is overwhelming and you don’t want to miss anything that is important to your family. And there is virtually limitless information on the web for planning your Disney vacation. It is so easy to get wrapped up in it.
On the one hand, I think I was somewhat successful in this, primarily because I was flexible. Yes I had a plan. But no I did not enforce that plan like a dictator. I know families who have literally every minute planned out, down to how quickly they need to walk to the next ride. I did not come even close to going that far. I had a plan for which parks to go to when. I had FastPasses. I had some dining reservations. I even had a rough route mapped out through Magic Kingdom. But I was willing to let any of it go out the window (ok, maybe not the prepaid dining reservations) at a moment’s notice. Want to hop on that ride because it has a short line? Ok no problem. Want to skip that ride? Sure thing. Stop for a snack? You got it. I used our plan as a starting point and let the kids take it from there, and I think it worked out pretty well.
BUT. There’s always a but. I have to admit that I feel like I did overplan by putting such a singular focus on the nighttime shows, which turned out to be important to no one but me. So in that sense my planning feels like a bit of a failure. I had figured out our park days almost completely based on finishing each day in a park with a nighttime show and then we ended up seeing only 1 of the 3 shows and it was the one that was scary and intense.
In retrospect, we could have vastly simplified things and done a full day each in Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom and Epcot and spent our last half day in Hollywood Studios. We probably would have accomplished almost all the same things but would have saved time and money by not park hopping.
I’m absolutely certain my kids haven’t thought twice about any of this but as a mom and the family travel planner, I definitely have. So while my slightly OCD self regrets the high level park plan we followed, I know in my heart it did not take anything away from our overall Disney experience. The boys had an amazing time. They didn’t feel like they missed out on anything. We perfectly captured the Disney experience unique to their ages – new and more thrilling rides, different shows and experiences, and probably the last fleeting moments of JB’s character fascination. When we return in another 4-5 years, it will be another whole new experience again. And I won’t overplan.
