Making the Most of Disney Photopass

Walt Disney World has a program called Disney Photopass. Photographers are positioned at every interesting or beautiful spot you can think of throughout the parks. There are even photographers at some of the character meals. After you get home, you can buy merchandise made with the photo of your choice, or make copies of your photos.

Because we take so many photos ourselves, we never really considered buying any Disney Photopass photos. We did purchase several of the group photos offered at Character Meals, mainly because they were the only photos with all of us in them! The packages were a little pricey, though.

What I didn't know was that you can buy a CD of all of your Disney Photopass photos for $125! They have a copyright release embedded in them, so you can use them however you want.

On our next trip we'll get our picture taken by every Disney photographer we see, and I am sure we will be purchasing the Disney Photopass CD!

Our visit with Jack Sparrow at Pirates of the Caribbean

One of my children (who I won't embarrass by naming) has been Jack Sparrow crazy for a few years. During our 2007 visit, we were excited to find a little outdoor show next to Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean ride featuring Jack. In the show, Jack and his assistant recruit kids to join his pirate crew. 

My younger group got to participate, and took home certificates naming them pirates on the crew of the Black Pearl. It was a blast. 

In 2009, though, it got even better. We were walking past the Pirates of the Caribbean ride (which had almost no line at the time) and saw Jack saunter in the door with his trusty sidekick. We immediately made a b-line for the ride. 

We caught up with him on the first turn and got autographs and pictures. He was as charmingly drunk as ever, joking around with us and staggering a lot. When I handed him my gigantic pile of autograph books he made a smart aleck comment about Jon and Kate plus Eight. It was very funny, and a thrill for my Jack-crazy teenager. 

One of the best parts about Walt Disney World trips are the surprises around every corner!

Why We Love Character Meals at Walt Disney World

Part of the Walt Disney World magic has always been meeting the characters. Pooh, Eeyore, Mickey, Minnie, even Alice in Wonderland come to life, play with the kids, sign autographs, and generally make it all wonderful. 

There are three ways to meet characters:

The accidental meeting. Sometimes the characters are out and about, just passing through, and you can grab a picture and say hi. Rarely does this last long enough to sign autographs or generally hang out.

Stand in line. All over the parks, there are meet and greets. We met Sully and Mike from Monsters, Inc. in a building in Hollywood Studios. Lilo and Stitch are at Animal Kingdom. Mickey and Goofy are pretty much everywhere.  It is fun, but time-consuming and sometimes very hot.


Our FAVORITE - The Character Meal. Many of the restaurants in the parks and the resorts have breakfasts, lunches, or dinners with Disney characters. These meals are generous to say the least, as a matter of fact many of them are buffet style. They are air-conditioned and extremely comfortable. 
Characters come around to each and every table and interact with the kids. They take pictures, sign autographs, and give the kids a chance to really enjoy them. All of the characters are incredible. Alice has a British accent. Snow White has a squeaky voice. They stay in character the whole time and make an effort to really connect with the kids.

Character meals cost anywhere from around $20 per person for adult breakfasts and $36 per person for adult dinners up to more than $50 per person for dinner at Cinderella's Castle. During our first two visits to Walt Disney World we had two character meals, but since we started purchasing the Disney Dining Plan we do at least one a day. 

A good way to look at a list of Character Meals available is to look up the Disney Dining Plan. Character meals are marked with a Mickey Mouse hand on the restaurant list.

Before You Go: Read the Kingdom Keepers

One thing we do to fuel the excitement about our upcoming trip is to read great Disney-themed books. We read the Kingdom Keepers straight through over one weekend right before our 2007 Walt Disney World trip. It was riveting for all of us, except my youngest son (who was 4 at the time).
Five Orlando kids are chosen to be models for holographic hosts (called DHI's) in the Walt Disney World parks, but soon find themselves being transported into the parks at night to fight off classic Disney villains who are trying to take over. 
It was exciting to get to Walt Disney World and visit the rides we had read about in the book. We found ourselves giggling like crazy when we rode It's a Small World, and looking for villains in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. 
The Kingdom Keepers does have some scary scenes. In the It's a Small World scene, the dolls come to life, and they are definitely bad guys. The pirates in the story act like, well, pirates. It's probably most appropriate for tweens and older (10 and up), although my 7 and 8 year olds thought it was fantastic.

Hidden Gems: The Writer's Stop

Back in 2004, we were wandering through Disney Hollywood Studios and we stepped into a tiny corner shop to look at some Disney kitchen stuff they had displayed in the window. Beyond the displays we found shelves of books, small cafe tables, a couch and television (showing old Disney clips, of course), and a bakery case. 

Inside the bakery case were massive (think large grapefruit-sized) chocolate chocolate chip muffins, carrot cake muffins with a layer of cream cheese frosting in the middle, rice krispie treats on a stick shaped like Mickey Mouse's head, with the ears dipped in chocolate, plain rice krispie bricks... You get the picture. 

Breakfast choices in Hollywood Studios are rather limited. The Writer's Stop is the perfect place to split a few muffins, throw in some fruit and a drink, and call it good. The best part is, at least as of 2009, the food qualified as a snack on the Disney Dining Plan!

While you're there, take a look at the Disney themed books, or pick up a best-seller for the plane ride home. We also found our Mickey Mouse pancake mould there!

Before You Go: Making Mickey Tie-Dye T-Shirts

Usually our Walt Disney World trips consist of our family of seven, plus one or two extra grandparents. For our 2009 visit, though, we truly had a Grand Gathering. My mom and dad came, along with two of their grandchildren, plus my sister-in-law. We decided a group that big needed matching t-shirts!

I looked around on the internet and found the directions for making Mickey tie-dye t-shirts here.

After reviewing several different sets of directions, I settled on the one that had step by step photos. Basically, the process goes like this:

1. Buy white t-shirts, wash according to directions on package. Do not use fabric softener.
2. Print an outline of Mickey's head from the internet, copy it onto cardboard, and trace it onto the shirt front.
3. Stitch around the outline on both layers of the shirt (front and back) with white dental floss.
4. Pull the thread tight so that Mickey's head pops up.
5. Rubber band the rest of the shirt.
6. Dye Mickey's head first. Put plastic wrap around it and secure with rubber bands before dyeing the rest of the shirt.
7. Follow the dye instructions as far as how long the dye should be in the fabric, etc.
8. Remove the rubber bands first, then the floss.

Our results were pretty good, but not every shirt turned out perfectly. Here are some of the lessons I learned:

• The bigger shirts turned out better. All the kids' shirts, plus mine and my sister-in-law's, came from big multi-packs of boys' t-shirts. My husband's and my parents' were individually purchased. They were made from much thicker material. All of their Mickey heads were very defined. There was also a lot more white space on their shirts, because it was harder to penetrate the thicker material with the dye. 
• Stitching the Mickey heads was the most time consuming part. It took me several days to stitch all the shirts, and a few hours to dye them all. I am in search of a machine stitch method, but at this point I don't know of a thread that would work.
• Be patient when applying dye. We had shirts that were missing part of Mickey's ear, and shirts that had a big yellow blob in the middle instead of a Mickey head. Let the dye soak in and reevaluate before adding more dye. 
• Mistakes can be salvaged! We used a pink permanent marker to fill in the missing ear. We also used a bleach pen to outline Mickey's head on the yellow blob shirt.
• When removing rubber bands and floss, watch the scissors! I managed to cut not one, but two holes in my own shirt while I was removing rubber bands. 

The shirts have turned out to be a fun and inexpensive souvenir of our trip. We will make new shirts for our January 2011 trip. We will also be trying the same method on sweatshirts. 
I'm also planning to try making Mickey heads on colored shirts with the bleach pen.


There is a cute video tutorial on making the t-shirts here and step by step instructions here.


Have fun!!

Hi, my name is Kate Frishman, and I'm a Disney addict. This is not a twelve-step program. As a matter of fact, I have no interest in reforming. Instead, I'm daydreaming about my next Disney fix with my family!
My husband and I have five children, all of whom are Disney addicts as well. We're on an every two year Disney World visit schedule, and we've just passed our "one year without Disney" mark. As usual, we've all started to whine:
"I miss Disney."
"Remember the Mad Hatter at Park Fare?"
"I wish we could get Mickey waffles."
"I'll draw a better Mickey Mouse this time. I've been practicing!"
"Can't we go to Disney this year?"
Disney visits can be an amazing and magical experience. They are the most jam-packed, sleep-deprived, laugh-filled, and yet relaxing vacation we've ever found. Come along for the ride, and I'll share all the tips, hints, and tricks we've picked up over the years. We'll also talk about what's new and fun in the World of Disney.