The short answer: YES!

The slightly longer answer: Whether you’re at a Disney theme park for one day or two weeks, the Memory Maker photography package is an amazing value. Not only does it ensure you will comeback from your vacation with a collection of images that include the entire family, it allows you to put down your phone or camera during character interactions and just enjoy and relish the excitement of the moment.

If you have visited my site and read through my “why” as a photographer, you know that I absolutely love making memories at Walt Disney World. This began in my childhood with my dad and continues with my own family now.

I was a child of the 80’s. Digital cameras did not exist, and neither did the Memory Maker package. Every year my dad purchased at least one print that the Disney photographers made of us. A few of them survived the many moves between then and now, but not nearly enough.

The Memory Maker allows you to download up to 5MB jpeg files of your favorite images they captured for the days covered by your package.  Here’s what you do- and do them all:

• Back them up on an external hard drive and get them off your phone.
• You can then print these images nicely (usually up to 8×10) for a true tangible archive of your vacation.
• Download the smaller file size too and share them on your social media

My kids aren’t old enough to have social media accounts or their own phones for that matter. So, they really only get to see the images I print. They love walking past memories we made at Disney hanging on the walls or flipping through the photo albums. True, most of them are images I made, but some are by the plethora of talented photographers at Disney.

Now, you might be thinking, “Stephana, you are a professional photographer that enjoys candid moments. These are mostly posed pictures. Do you really find value in them?”

Yes! My main objective in the parks is to capture in-between moments in an artistic way- the ones that only a personal photographer will be around to get. I also aim to get adult-child moments that are unique to the situation (like on a particular ride), but still show qualities of what that relationship looks like everyday.

Now, a Photo Pass Photographer’s objective is specific to where they are assigned- sometimes it is moment driven (character meeting) and other times it is a portrait (entire family in the picture). Those are both really important to me as a parent, especially since I’m the one that wears the camera in our family!

When my boys are saying hello to a character they love, I want to be there for them and really witness what they are feeling. It is hard to do that if I’m also trying to make a creative image. For that I reason, if there is a Photo Pass Photographer assigned to the experience, I put down my camera and stay out of their way. The latter of the two reasons is pretty obvious why I want it, plus I always look terrible in selfies.

Ok, that’s enough chatter from me on this post. To summarize: invest in your memories and include Memory Maker as a part of that!

If you would like to speak with me about capturing your day or days while on your Orlando vacation, please click the button below and tell me a bit about your plans.