Wednesday, May 18, 2016

PhotoPass versus Marathon Photo

So I gotta say, I'm a total fan of the PhotoPass system for runDisney race photos. I never buy race photos because, without fail, I look terrible every picture.

Thank you, cheapo Wet'n'Wild lip stick for remaining painted on my face for an entire race.

 

I'm not really sure why I insisted on doing my Tinkerbell Half recap before downloading the official pictures. It is a mystery. I make bad choices. Often.

Look! I'm winning!

 

I knew before the race that runDisney was making the switch, but I had never done PhotoPass at either resort before, so I wasn't entirely sure how it worked. Turns out, it is not rocket science but it's a bit confusing at first and you have to seek out the information on the runDisney page to figure out how you link your race photos.

Official Disneyland app for iPhone

 

Basically, PhotoPass is a service where park photographers take your picture in front of the castle or with characters, etc, and they give you a card so that you can access your pictures. You download the app, they scan a card or the bar code on your app and voila! You can can pay for your pictures and download everything for that day.

 

You can look up the race codes on the runDisney website for each race. You plug in the codes with your number and link them to your photo pass account.

 

I didn't really investigate the process until I was at the airport on my way home. I wish I had done my homework ahead of time, because for a flat rate of about $40, you can download all of your pictures for one day.

 

On the day of the half marathon, we took a bunch of pictures with characters in the parks with our medals on. We just used cell phones, but if I had realized how it all worked, we could have had them scan the bar code and gotten a bunch of professional pictures in addition to the race photos for a very reasonable price.

Not the most flattering picture of me but I couldn't resist Caption Jack in it.

 

So now I know for next time. Also, if you take a photo after the finish, there a nice race banner at the bottom. I think that's really cool. And in general, I feel like my pictures over all were just better than other race photos in the past. Maybe PhotoPass cast members get trained on taking decent action shots.

A little sass for Goth Tink

 

All in all, I totally approve of this change and I will better take advantage of the process for the WDW Marathon in January.

 

10 comments:

  1. I liked it also and ended up buying my pictures. We might not be so thrilled when they up the price to $100 for the day like Marathon Photo used to charge.

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    1. I know, it's almost too good to be true and therefore, Disney will hike up the price. But for now, it's s great value. I never bought pictures before because they were so expensive EACH and I never liked any of them, but I was willing to spend $40 to get unlimited photos. So maybe their thinking is that keeping it more reasonable is better than people not buying them at all. Hopefully, if they do hike it up, they'll do it in small increments.

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  2. I don't know if I understand this correctly but if you pay $40 for a whole days worth of pictures and you add in the race pictures for that day, that's an awesome deal! I wonder how long it will be before disney raises the prices!

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    1. Right. You use the PhotoPass as normal for time in the park and then there is an option to link race photos. It's really s great deal. Now, if you're doing a challenge, you'd have to pay for each day but then I would definitely take better advantage of photo opps in the parks.

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  3. I never get race photos for the same reason, the photographers always get me when I feel like I'm going to die lol

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  4. My sister also ran Tinkerbell and she was raving about the pictures this time around. She had like over 50 pictures and they were all awesome! Way better than spending $30 for one.

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  5. It's hard to imagine that runDisney will allow this great price to photos to continue. The $40 price tag for a full day of professional photos including the race pics is awesome. I wonder if they will offer this option at DL Paris in September.

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  6. I've been wishing photopass would do the runDisney photos forever!! Although, I was a little bit nervous this time, but it worked out great. And yes the one day price is amazing! Love your pics!!

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Thanks for reading!