Memory Maker - how do they get ride photos of the right people?

bakerjay

Mouseketeer
Joined
Feb 11, 2011
A question about memory maker...I read the sticky but I don't see anything that explains this and it might very well be a dumb question but I'll ask anyway ;) How do the ride photos get taken of the right people? Assuming you're going on a ride standby, you don't scan a ticket or a magic band (at least I don't think so...I haven't been in three years but don't recall scanning on standby) so how do they know who has purchased the memory maker package and who to get ride photos of?
 
You scan your magic band on the way out below the photos on some of the rides.
 


RFID chips in your band - u HAVE to have a band for th3 rides with no touch point
Both above are correct - certain rides you scan others just record your RFID as you pass the camera. SDMT is one that you do not have a touch point but has the cutest photos!
So, it becomes less worth it to buy the memory maker passage if you don't have magic bands...as of now, there are no magic bands in our party, just paper tickets.
 
...so how do they know who has purchased the memory maker package and who to get ride photos of?

At the time they take the photos they don't care. Photos are taken of every vehicle. The photo is then stored on the Disney Photo Pass server and tagged with all the magic band ids that were captured at the time the photo was taken. Whether you have purchased Memory Maker or not, the photo will appear in the PhotoPass section of your MDE app. If you purchased MM (or have an AP) the photo will be available for immediate download. If you haven't purchased, you'll see the photo but it will have a watermark over it. You can buy the photo, in which case the watermark disappears and you can download the photo.

Steve
 


So, it becomes less worth it to buy the memory maker passage if you don't have magic bands...as of now, there are no magic bands in our party, just paper tickets.

You will miss a few ride photos without a magic band. If I remember, 7DMT, Pirates were the only ones. I can't speak to ToT as we don't ride it. Are you staying on site? If so you can request a band on check in at no charge - it is just grey but comes in handy. We ended up finding that out by accident as we were late to meet a member of our party and the front desk got her one to get into the room.
 
I found my son's old magic band! I thought they were all lost when we moved...so one person in the party will have a band, we are good :)

If the magic band is older than 2-3 years old, the battery might be dead and won’t work for ride photos like SDMT and Pirates.
 
You will miss a few ride photos without a magic band. If I remember, 7DMT, Pirates were the only ones. I can't speak to ToT as we don't ride it. Are you staying on site? If so you can request a band on check in at no charge - it is just grey but comes in handy. We ended up finding that out by accident as we were late to meet a member of our party and the front desk got her one to get into the room.

Slinky dog dash is this way as well, I see Star Wars going that route too
 
So, it becomes less worth it to buy the memory maker passage if you don't have magic bands...as of now, there are no magic bands in our party, just paper tickets.

In theory you can stop by a Photopass desk, and tell them the time you rode, and they can usually find your photo and manually associate it with your account.
 
For those interested in how this works; usually a RFID chip will only work short range with tapping, like you do with your Magic Band when you enter the park. However the Magic Bands have a little extra technology in them to make the chip connect at longer distances; via a receiver / transmitter that needs a longer antenna, so there is actually an antenna all along the inside of the colored part of the band. This is used for photos as on Seven Dwarfs, but Disney also uses this to track customer behavior, for instance to look at what shops a customer might visit and how long a customer stays in a shop or restaurant.
 
For those interested in how this works; usually an RFID chip will only work short range with tapping, like you do with you Magic Band when you enter the park. However the Magic Bands have a little extra technology in them to make the chip connect at longer distances; via a receiver / transmitter that needs a longer antenna, so there is actually an antenna all along the inside of the colored part of the band. This is used for photos as on Seven Dwarfs, but Disney also uses this to track customer behavior, for instance to look at what shops a customer might visit and how long a customer stays in a shop or restaurant.


Yup - doesn’t bother me in the slightest!!
 
I did a few surveys during our stay and in at least a couple I was asked if they could link my survey answers with my magic band activity during the week. I had no problem with that though I’m sure some would not like the big brother aspect. I would love to see how much they can track and how much they do track. I also am tracked at work as a nurse. We have to wear tracking devices tied into our call light system.
 
It doesn't always work. At least one ride every trip we get the wrong pictures (TT is a frequent offender but it's also happened at RNR too). Ironically we have 5 MBs in our party (all new every year) so we get 5 pictures of other people's ride vehicles. There is a process by which you can send Disney an email with another picture of your family that day (so they can see what you're wearing and what you look like) and the approximate time you were on the ride and they will find the correct photo for you in case this happens to anyone else.
 
You scan your magic band on the way out below the photos on some of the rides.
Actually, if you have a MB you don't have to scan at all. All photos scan via RFID, even those with touch points. Scanning is redundant/unnecessary.

I'd say all the MB type 1 are too old to work via RFID now. DD has a few she still uses and when we ride her copies of photos don't appear in my account. I can tell because as PP said, you'll get a copy for each person in your group. We only get 3

But unlike PP, we rarely get the wrong photos, once every 5 trips I guess, 1 ride will be wrong. Ride photos are my least favorite photo so I've never attempted to get the right one. I didn't even realize it was possible. I knew we could get missing photos but never thought about it for ride photos. Good to know if it ever does matter.
 
They more often get it wrong than right with us. This especially happens on TT, EE, and Splash. We have bands but haven't used them yet, we prefer using the ticket cards. That might have something to do with it. We didn't know about the emailing Disney process until much more recently so never saw some of them
 
For those interested in how this works; usually a RFID chip will only work short range with tapping, like you do with your Magic Band when you enter the park. However the Magic Bands have a little extra technology in them to make the chip connect at longer distances; via a receiver / transmitter that needs a longer antenna, so there is actually an antenna all along the inside of the colored part of the band. This is used for photos as on Seven Dwarfs, but Disney also uses this to track customer behavior, for instance to look at what shops a customer might visit and how long a customer stays in a shop or restaurant.
To expand one step further, for those curious, the bold gets the battery power from the tap point. This is why old bands will work forever at tap points. They only stop working for longer range RFID, like ride photos. They also are useless for their tracking purposes.
 

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