Guys, I am a Disney nut. I am obsessed, and I think if given the opportunity to live there, I would (but that would require a LOT of pixie dust and I’m not sure my husband would agree, though I do think our kids would come ha). So when I came across the blog of Marcie in Mommyland (go check her out here she has awesome travel advice for families) and saw she had professional pictures done at the Magic Kingdom, I thought “OH MY GOODNESS, if I can’t live at Disney like I wish, I can at least bring home some awesome pictures.”
You may think I’m crazy. “Nicki, we are already spending SO much money to be there, I can’t imagine why we’d need professional pictures!” I hear you! My husband said the same thing (love you honey!). BUT let me put it this way:
- You spend ALL that time planning, saving, and traveling to get there, and then you take pictures the whole time, so you can remember the magic that is Disney. However, if you are like me, most of our pictures are with backpacks on, occasionally a sweatshirt or windbreaker wrapped around my waist, or the stroller in front of us or nearby, and by about 11am all my makeup has sweat off! AND they are usually all cell phone pictures, which have gotten much better in recent years, but they can’t beat professional pictures.
- I am an amateur photographer, but with 3 little kids to keep track of we don’t have time (or an extra arm) to carry that good DSLR camera around the parks! We are always looking forward to the next ride, meal or getting to our Fast Pass on time, and no way are they going to be patient enough to let me get all my settings perfect, smile just so and then wait patiently while I safely stow the camera again. I actually took our good camera with us for awhile, but then sadly, on a trip to Sea World, my DSLR camera was stolen, not from our stroller left unattended, but out from under our seats during a show. YEP- after that we didn’t want to take the chance of losing an expensive camera again, so we’ve always left it at home since then.
- Random strangers in your pictures!! It’s nearly impossible to get pictures of your group without strangers in your pictures. I get it, it’s Disney and this is very hard to accomplish, but if you have a session with a professional photographer they know all the tricks and which sides of the castle to go to that can avoid people. We occasionally had to wait a minute or two for people to move out of our way, but it was worth those couple of minutes, and our photographer knew exactly where to go and how to accomplish pictures with minimal other people in them!! Super hard for the untrained eye to do, but these guys had it down!
- YOLO!! Usually this phrase annoys me, but here it applies well. I am a huge sentimental, sappy gal. I look at my kids and just think “wow they have really grown up fast.” They are only 6, 5, and 2.5, but time flies, and all the cliches are true! Some of my fondest memories of my childhood are from our yearly Disney trips, and I LOVE looking back at those pictures and showing them to my kids as well. The KIDS love looking at the pictures, so to me, it’s well worth the cost to preserve these memories with really good quality pictures. We did our session to celebrate our daughter’s 5th birthday.
What about Disney Photo Pass??
Photo Pass definitely is very helpful, and I’m not saying it doesn’t have it’s place. We’ve definitely gotten it on both Disney cruises we’ve been on, and during a couple of our Disney trips we’ve been on. Sometimes the ride pictures and character meeting pictures are priceless and well worth it. A lot of times iPhone pictures don’t turn out well inside buildings and in low lighting, but the Photo Pass pictures do!
However, I will say you do have to wait in line behind other people a lot of times, and you most definitely will have other people in your pictures. We took a lot of pictures with the sun directly in our eyes too, so we had squinty eyes and the kids eyes were closed a lot. I also personally always feel the “hurry up there’s people waiting to go next” feeling, though some of that is self inflicted. These aren’t terrible things, but if you are like me, and a picture nut, it’s really awesome to have pictures of just you and your family in the frame, looking as good as possible, in your nicer clothes. I do have a favorite picture from Photo Pass that was taken on the way out of Magic Kingdom. It was night time, and I was teary because we were leaving and I didn’t know when our next visit would be. It was the day after our daughter’s 4th birthday and it was just a truly magical trip. I drug my family into another line, and was happy I did (despite some eye rolls I got) haha!
SO, where do you find such a photographer??? I’m sure there are many around, but we chose Sees the Day Photography . They are a reasonably priced husband and wife team named Cary and Mario. We ended up with SO many images (not like some photographers who make you choose 10-15 out of an hour session), and they were very patient and prompt with all of my emailed questions beforehand, and trust me, I asked a lot of detail oriented questions!! They were also VERY patient with our kids, who were kind of in rare form, very high energy, and kind of challenging!
We chose the hour long session, as I thought this was about how long my kids and husband could reasonably last haha, and it ended up being perfect. We did pictures at the train station, in the Emporium, down an alleyway of sorts off of Main Street that I had no idea existed, LOTS of castle pictures, by the Christmas store, and then we were able to choose one ride. For the ride we chose Dumbo, as it’s a classic Disney ride that we all love. We did get a Fast Pass ahead of time for it, and so did the photographers. I really, really wanted all 5 of us in the same Dumbo elephant, and Cary made that happen! They do offer longer and shorter packages as well, and during our session were telling me about some custom experiences they have done, so just ask if you have a unique situation! They also don’t put a limit on the amount of people in your session, which is also very awesome. We received our final images exactly when they were promised, and were very happy with the end result!
It was an easy session, as Cary and Mario have a very chill vibe. They didn’t get stressed out at anything, and really just kind of guided us around easily. It’s very easy to get stressed out at Magic Kingdom with the crowds and they were very calm, which helped us be relaxed as well! The experience was a good one, and I’d definitely use them again! Check out some of my favorite pictures from our session.
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