Private Photo Session Inside Magic Kingdom from Disney PhotoPass

Have you ever wanted to have a private photo session inside the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World?  Have you wished you had a photographer with you to capture a special moment or event?  Disney has a new offering that might be what you are looking for.  With the new PhotoPass offering “Capture Your Moment”, Disney has made it possible for you to schedule a private photo session inside Magic Kingdom.

Private Photo Session Inside Magic Kingdom?

Disney, forever on the lookout for ways to make us spend our money, has come up with a new PhotoPass offering. The new PhotoPass offering is called “Capture Your Moment”.  When you book Capture Your Moment, you are booking 20 minutes of time with a Disney PhotoPass photographer inside the Magic Kingdom theme park during regular park hours.

Sometimes, you want a PhotoPass photographer to be focused exclusively on you and or your family for longer than the one – three pictures most PhotoPass photographers have time to take.  Examples include baby announcements, birthdays, proposals, anniversaries, baby gender reveals, and family reunions.

Disney has obviously seen the professional photographers roaming around the parks with their clients, taking pictures.  They’ve also seen the gorgeous pictures online taken by professional photographers to commemorate engagements, baby announcements, girls’ weekends, and many other events.  Since, as we know, Disney wants ALL our money, they certainly don’t want us hiring outside photographers to capture our special moments!

Private Photo Session Inside Magic Kingdom: The Basics

• • • Available in the Magic Kingdom only.  (At least right now!)
    • $50 for a 20-minute session; $100 for a 40-minute session.
    • During regular park hours.
    • Limit of 8 people per shoot.
    • Photos are NOT included in session price.
    • Advance reservations recommended. Call 407-939-7758.

Could We Use This For Wedding Photos?

The short answer? No.  Disney wants to be very clear that is NOT for wedding photos.

Disney also made it very clear this will NOT replace the private Bridal Photo Session available for both Disney and non Disney brides and grooms.  These pricey sessions happen in the early morning hours before the park opens, and are truly private.

Bridal and wedding attire is specifically prohibited for the PhotoPass sessions, so if you’re going to do a Capture Your Moment Disney PhotoPass photo shoot, plan to avoid the floor length gown, the glamorous white dress or the tuxedo.

If you want to learn more about a Disney Bridal Portrait photo session, check out this post and this post.

What Locations Are Available?

Disney is not releasing location information or options for these sessions.  At least, not yet.  Current policy dictates that your photographer will review the location options with you when you meet for your session.  Once your photographer has given you the options, you will be able to choose your location.

Disney is doing this for a couple of reasons.  One, they want the flexibility to adapt to park events, crowds and activities.  Two, they want the flexibility to schedule sessions at the same time in different areas of the park.  Three (and this is totally my own suspicious nature), Disney may not want guests to focus on particular locations.  For example, I suspect Cinderella Castle may be a preferred backdrop for many guests.  However, stage shows, parades and Castle projection shows will make that challenging many times each day.  So perhaps Disney hopes to dissuade guests from assuming they can take photos at the Castle.

Many of the marketing pictures Disney has released with this announcement do include the Castle in the background. Perhaps I’m being too cynical.

I can envision a scenario where Castle locations are available initially as a test balloon.  Once Disney sees which locations are the most popular, I suspect pricing will be revised.  Maybe a tier structure will be introduced for certain locations.  I suspect we will eventually see a tier structure at some point, based on my observations of Disney business practices over many years.

Can I Request a Particular PhotoPass Photographer?

At the moment, it does not sound like you can request your photographer but you could certainly try.  If you have a particular PhotoPass photographer that works at the Magic Kingdom that you like, you could request them for your Capture Your Moment session.  It’s not clear how many PhotoPass photographers are available for this offering.  It is also not clear if the pool is limited to the most experienced PhotoPass photographers.

If you do request a particular photographer for your Capture Your Moment session, please let me know how it goes.  Those of us that live out of state probably don’t have a favorite PhotoPass photographer.  However, I bet  local residents that visit the parks often have favorites.

Are the Photos Going to Be Digital or Print?

All pictures taken by your PhotoPass photographer during your session will be digital.  As with all PhotoPass pictures, you can visit a PhotoPass center in one of the parks, and purchase physical prints of the digital pictures if you want to.  Generally, if you have the downloaded digital files, you will be happier with printing the photos from somewhere like Shutterfly or MPix.  More options are available, and prices are almost always better.

The price of your Capture Your Moment session does not include the actual pictures taken during your session.  Let me say that again:  the digital files of the photos taken during your session are NOT included in the session price of $50.  The good news is that if you already planned to purchase Memory Maker (which I highly recommend for all visitors!), or if you are an Annual Passholder, you will have access to these pictures, along with any other PhotoPass photos or attraction photos.

Memory Maker

With Memory Maker you have up to 30 days after your trip to download all pictures and videos attached to your My Disney Experience account.  Because individual downloads start at $14.50 per photo, it doesn’t take long for Memory Maker (at $169 for advance purchase) to be a reasonably good deal.  There are currently 13 attractions that take picture or video during the ride, and as long as you have a Magic Band (or scan your ticket at the end of the ride on your picture), all those videos and photos WILL be on your account.  For more information on Memory Maker, please visit this post.

Disney does offer a one-day Memory Maker for $69.  If you’re doing a super short trip, or you really aren’t interested in any of your ride photos or PhotoPass pictures from any of your other park days, this option is worth considering.  As long as you schedule your PhotoPass Capture Your Moment session on the day you have your one-day Memory Maker on your account, all the pictures from your session will be available in your Memory Maker.  Alternatively, you’ll have the ability to view the pictures and purchase the downloads on an individual basis.

Scheduling Your Private Photo Session Inside Magic Kingdom

It is recommended that you schedule your session in advance (Call 407-939-7758) to guarantee availability.  However, there are currently some same-day sessions are available.

You cannot be late for your session.  Once you have reserved your session, you’ll be told where to meet your photographer.  Disney states that if you are late, your session will not be extended.  As an example:  If you have a 20 minute session that is supposed to start at 3:30 pm, you arrive at 3:45 pm, your session will last 5 minutes.  Disney says under no circumstances will the sessions be extended.

Things to Consider

If you’ve always wanted to do a private photo session inside Magic Kingdom, the Capture Your Moment session may be a perfect solution for you.  However, there are a few things you want to consider before booking your session.

• • • The Capture Your Moment sessions will occur during regular park hours.  This means you will likely have other guests in the background of your pictures.
    • You have the option to book 2 sessions back to back.  This would give you 40 minutes of time with your PhotoPass photographer.  Again, this whole session will be inside Magic Kingdom during regular park hours.  BUT this does mean you (and your family) are sacrificing park time.  This could frustrate kids eager to go ride rides and have fun.
    • The skill and talent of the in-park PhotoPass photographer varies from photographer to photographer.  Some PhotoPass photographers are pretty good, and are able to adapt to changes in light and shadows.  Others are basically able to push the button and maybe notice if you’re in focus or not.  There there are varying levels of quality amongst the PhotoPass photographers, so that’s an important consideration for readers considering one of these sessions.
    • The cost of the individual pictures are likely to be high.  Of course, if you have Memory Maker or are an Annual Passholder, your photos are included.  If you have to purchase the pictures individually, they will likely start at $14.50 per photo download.  If you end up really liking all your pictures, the pricing can add up really quickly.  (Note: You CAN add Memory Maker during your trip. It costs more to do it this way, $199 versus the $169 advance purchase.  So if you like at least 10-14 pictures, you’ll want to add memory maker.  Then you’ll get all  pictures through Memory Maker.  This will save money over purchasing individually).
    • This could be tough to do as a surprise.  Since you are meeting your photographer at the start time of your session, and THEN choosing a location, it could be challenging to set up a surprise for the photographer to capture.  (A proposal, for instance.)  I suspect PhotoPass will find a way to help you, but I don’t know for sure.  This could add unnecessary stress to your big moment.

Potential Quality Issues

Let’s talk a little more about the potential quality issue. One would assume that the photographers used for the Capture Your Moment sessions will be skilled and/or Senior PhotoPass photographers.  There are definitely very good PhotoPass photographers out there.  There are many stories of PhotoPass photographers that really loved their job and got really good.  They emerged as very skilled photographers that eventually joined the Disney Fine Art Photography team or went out on their own.  However, my PhotoPass library can testify that there are also some not-so-great PhotoPass photographers out there.

Again, I am assuming that Disney will choose its best PhotoPass photographers for these sessions.  However, I can also envision a universe where these are popular and in high demand and require all hands on deck.  This could result in a situation where you pay $50 for your session and end up with pictures you’re not happy.  I think initially, these are a little bit of book at your own risk.  Especially right now while this is a new offering.

Once we’ve had a chance to get reports back from people that have booked these sessions, I’ll feel more comfortable recommending them strongly.  I want to know how it went, where they took photos, what locations were offered, etc.  I will keep my ear to the ground on this one and let you know what I hear.

Capture YOUR Moment

Right now, I am cautiously optimistic about this new offering from PhotoPass.  $50 for 20 minutes is quite a bit of money.  However, if it’s a once in a lifetime or a very rarely in lifetime occasion, I could see it being a fun and special experience.

For example, if you’re at Disney World to celebrate your grandma’s 90th birthday and you want to have a lot of pictures of the whole family, this could be your solution.  A group of pictures of Grandma with all the grandkids; just Grandma by herself; the girls with Grandma; Grandma with her children; the boys with Grandma –you guys know what I mean.  You just can’t hold up a regular PhotoPass photographer for very long and take a bunch of different groupings.  So this might be a great solution for you!

Another scenario:  If you’re planning a special “in the moment” event and you want lots of pictures, this could also be a perfect session for you.  For example, if you are planning to propose or tell your whole family you’re expecting a baby.  This could be terrific for that.  When my husband proposed to me, he did it at a regular PhotoPass photographer. We got lucky because he didn’t have a line, and he got pictures of the whole thing.  (Of course, it was a pretty quick moment.  It was following our first marathon, and I initially thought he’d fallen!).

Private Photo Session Inside Magic Kingdom: Final Thoughts

Your mileage may vary on whether you find value in this package or not.  If you really want a private photo session inside Magic Kingdom, and don’t mind the presence of other guests in the background, this might be for you.  Also, if these are talented photographers and you get a bunch of good pictures out of it, you might want to schedule this.  Finally, if you already planned on buying memory maker, you may find this has value for you.

If you’ve been reading my blog for any period of time, you probably know that  I am a huge proponent of PhotoPass.  Mainly because I love pictures.  Before PhotoPass, I always came home from vacation with tons of pictures.  Unfortunately, I was almost never in any of them.  PhotoPass makes it possible for your entire family to get into many pictures.  My favorite souvenir from vacation is almost always the photo book I make after our trip, filled with pictures we took and pictures taken of us by PhotoPass photographers.

So, for someone like me, Capture Your Moment might be something I will consider at some point.  Maybe for an anniversary or another special event.  However, I still think $50 is a lot of money for 20 minutes.  Who knows what the future holds?  One of the few regrets I have from our Disney Fairy Tale Wedding trip is that we were unable to do a Bridal Portrait shoot at the Magic Kingdom.  I really wanted that darn picture with Frank and I in our wedding clothes in front of Cinderella Castle.  With the rules and schedules in place at the time, we just weren’t able to make it happen.  So, perhaps a more casual private photo shoot inside Magic Kingdom with PhotoPass photographers might be worth the cost?  I’m not sure.

What are your thoughts on this offering?  Is this something you think you might want to take advantage of?  What occasion would you consider “worth it”?  Please comment below with your thoughts.

Happy Dreaming!

Brooke