Ship Photos

[Heartfelttraveler]

We will be taking our first cruise to Alaska in 2015 and I have read about the ship photographer. When we took the grandchildren to D____Land we bought a photography package where the photographers scanned our card at different venues before taking our photos. The package included being able to view ALL the photos on-line and ordering prints either before we left or when we got home (with an extra shipping fee). It also included a CD with all the photos on it. Does Princess do anything like this, or do you just buy the photos one at a time from the gallery?

[Cruisin' Chick]

Unfortunately, Princess hasn't gone to an online method for viewing one's photos (unless things have changed for the Royal and Regal ships). When the photography department prints out the photos taken by the ship's photographers, the prints are placed on display walls, sorted by date taken. So all the embarkation photos will be put up, but usually by hour taken. So if you want to look for yours, just remember the approximate time it was taken. Same for the port embarkation photos (my suggestion: try to remember what you and your family was wearing -- it does help if someone in your party takes photos of your group each day). The formal dining photos will be sorted by the dining room (and seating early traditional, late traditional and anytime).

 

If you decide not to buy some or all of the photos, there will be a box to throw them in. You can usually buy your photos anytime up to the last night of the cruise.

 

It's a pain so maybe if enough passengers note the desire to move to a more efficient method (scanning someone's cabin card and then being able to view and purchase via your cabin TV would be a great) on the post-cruise survey...

[Thrak]

Unfortunately' date=' Princess hasn't gone to an online method for viewing one's photos (unless things have changed for the Royal and Regal ships). When the photography department prints out the photos taken by the ship's photographers, the prints are placed on display walls, sorted by date taken. So all the embarkation photos will be put up, but usually by hour taken. So if you want to look for yours, just remember the approximate time it was taken. Same for the port embarkation photos (my suggestion: try to remember what you and your family was wearing -- it does help if someone in your party takes photos of your group each day). The formal dining photos will be sorted by the dining room (and seating early traditional, late traditional and anytime).

 

If you decide not to buy some or all of the photos, there will be a box to throw them in. You can usually buy your photos anytime up to the last night of the cruise.

 

It's a pain so maybe if enough passengers note the desire to move to a more efficient method (scanning someone's cabin card and then being able to view and purchase via your cabin TV would be a great) on the post-cruise survey...

 

A number of people have reported that, on the new ships, the photos are viewable digitally and then you can choose which ones to have printed. It's a far less wasteful method than printing out a ton of unwanted photos and makes it easy for people to see all of their photos without having to peer through a ton of other people's photos in which they have no interest at all.

[Kybabe]

I was wondering about this myself. On the Princess website under gifts there is a Princess ship USB drive for $14.55 with the following description: Perfect device to transfer purchased digital photographs taken by our professional photography staff. Size: 2 GB Hoping that they would switch to digital but it is always fun to look through all those pictures! Ugh!:eek:

[ocwine04]

We will be taking our first cruise to Alaska in 2015 and I have read about the ship photographer. When we took the grandchildren to D____Land we bought a photography package where the photographers scanned our card at different venues before taking our photos. The package included being able to view ALL the photos on-line and ordering prints either before we left or when we got home (with an extra shipping fee). It also included a CD with all the photos on it. Does Princess do anything like this, or do you just buy the photos one at a time from the gallery?

 

I think you are asking my same question, as I also previously sailed on the D___ship. I don't need printed out photos, so in the end I purchased a CD of all my cruise photos. They scan your room key and also have facial recognition software (kind of creepy), so not one photo was missing from my CD. I assumed (wrongly) that all ships do it this way.

 

Does anyone know if we can purchase digital prints or a CD of prints on the Crown?

[Thrak]

I feel certain that all the photos taken onboard are taken with digital cameras so they should have no problem at all sticking them all on a CD or DVD for you. They just don't have the digital viewing available for passengers on most of the ships. I would hope that changes in the near future as the current method of printing out a truckload of unwanted photos is incredibly wasteful.

 

While they should be able to give (sell) you digital copies of all the photos from your current cruise I very much doubt that they keep any of the images once the cruise is over as they would want to reuse the storage media for the next cruise.

Edited October 8, 2014 by Thrak

[ocwine04]

I feel certain that all the photos taken onboard are taken with digital cameras so they should have no problem at all sticking them all on a CD or DVD for you. They just don't have the digital viewing available for passengers on most of the ships. I would hope that changes in the near future as the current method of printing out a truckload of unwanted photos is incredibly wasteful.

 

While they should be able to give (sell) you digital copies of all the photos from your current cruise I very much doubt that they keep any of the images once the cruise is over as they would want to reuse the storage media for the next cruise.

 

Thanks Thrak, yes I am talking about purchasing this on-board, not after. However, if they aren't tracking your photos with a room key or software, how would they know what photos to put on the CD? I will ask when on board, but it sounds like they don't have a system in place. Seems like a huge missed opportunity. On our other cruise, once we saw we had about 4 pictures that we would probably purchase, then we knew we might as well just buy the full CD of all our photos, and I loved it. The printed photos seem so wasteful in this age of digital photos for probably over 50% of the passengers. Oh well, I guess it still works for them.

[Loonbeam]

They do have a CD package but you have to locate and select the photos. They have not moved to facial recognition like some other lines have (at least not since our last cruise)

[ocwine04]

They do have a CD package but you have to locate and select the photos. They have not moved to facial recognition like some other lines have (at least not since our last cruise)

 

That is good to know. Thanks Loonbeam!

[ocwine04]

It looks like some of the ships are using the Facial Recognition Software. This is from the Passage Contract:

 

 

16. FACIAL RECOGNITION SOFTWARE; USE AND DISPLAY OF LIKENESS; PERSONAL DATA; PRIVACY NOTICE; PUBLIC WIRELESS SERVICES.

Princess MyPix kiosks may be available for optional use during Your cruise. Princess MyPix kiosks use facial recognition software which matches unique facial characteristics from Your security photo with photo(s) of You taken by onboard professional photographers. To use this facial recognition software, You must be at least 18 years of age and consent to use of this software by swiping Your cruise card or by providing Your cabin and folio number at one of the Princess Mypix kiosks onboard. Participation can be cancelled at any time during Your Cruise. Facial recognition information will be deleted from the system at the end of Your Cruise.

[Thrak]

It looks like some of the ships are using the Facial Recognition Software. This is from the Passage Contract:

 

 

16. FACIAL RECOGNITION SOFTWARE; USE AND DISPLAY OF LIKENESS; PERSONAL DATA; PRIVACY NOTICE; PUBLIC WIRELESS SERVICES.

Princess MyPix kiosks may be available for optional use during Your cruise. Princess MyPix kiosks use facial recognition software which matches unique facial characteristics from Your security photo with photo(s) of You taken by onboard professional photographers. To use this facial recognition software, You must be at least 18 years of age and consent to use of this software by swiping Your cruise card or by providing Your cabin and folio number at one of the Princess Mypix kiosks onboard. Participation can be cancelled at any time during Your Cruise. Facial recognition information will be deleted from the system at the end of Your Cruise.

 

I believe that's what is in use on Royal and Regal. I haven't heard that it's filtered down to the rest of the fleet yet but it's my thought that it probably will do so. The cost of the system would probably soon be offset by the saving in regard to printing all the unwanted photos.

[ocwine04]

Good to know about the Regal & Royal. Thanks!

[caribill]

I believe that's what is in use on Royal and Regal. I haven't heard that it's filtered down to the rest of the fleet yet but it's my thought that it probably will do so. The cost of the system would probably soon be offset by the saving in regard to printing all the unwanted photos.

 

It is my understanding that they still print out all the photos.

[pablo222]

Thanks Thrak, yes I am talking about purchasing this on-board, not after.

 

Finding your pictures on most princess ships is manual.

 

My experience has been -- if you want to purchase a digital image

-- you have to purchase the paper image, and then they will sell

you the digital image as well.

 

In the old days, they would burn the image on a cd.

 

Then, they forced you to buy a wicked over-priced thumb drive

(which could be used for all purchases during the cruise).

 

The last time I bought an image, they put it on my thumb drive.

[t&atravel]

Finding your pictures on most princess ships is manual.

 

My experience has been -- if you want to purchase a digital image

-- you have to purchase the paper image, and then they will sell

you the digital image as well.

 

In the old days, they would burn the image on a cd.

 

Then, they forced you to buy a wicked over-priced thumb drive

(which could be used for all purchases during the cruise).

 

The last time I bought an image, they put it on my thumb drive.

This is not entirely true. On two of our cruises the most recent being early September on the Coral we were able to buy digital prints only and they WERE able to find our pictures without the printed copies. The thumb drive was a bit expensive ($14) but we were traveling with 8 people (4 couples) and they let us put everyones pictures on the same thumb drive so we shared the cost. One digital photo is free with the thumb drive purchase. The other pictures, for example a formal shot, were $20 for a printed copy and then an additional $10 (9.99) for a digital copy of the same print. Digital only (no print) was I believe only $24 (I don't remember if this is the exact amount, but I do know it was less). They still print all the pictures and put them on the boards, but you don't have to buy them and carry them home with you. This way each of us were able to have copies of everybody's pictures and not just our own.

[t&atravel]

I forgot to add in my previous post that we were also able to view all of our pictures on the computer at the photo desk and then select the ones we wanted on the thumb drive. They were able to find them the same way you find them on the displays (i.e. What time were they taken, what dining room, what backdrop used for the formal shot...etc.)

[pablo222]

--- saving the moderators the effort ---

Edited October 9, 2014 by pablo222

[RetiredNTraveling]

Hope that this soon becomes Princess wide. It would eliminate the endless searches! I really like the thumb drive idea!

[skrodle]

I believe that's what is in use on Royal and Regal. I haven't heard that it's filtered down to the rest of the fleet yet but it's my thought that it probably will do so. The cost of the system would probably soon be offset by the saving in regard to printing all the unwanted photos.

 

Something I learned from doing the Ultimate Ship tour is a lot about the photo department. I think that its pretty much on every passengers mind "why develop (and yes, they are developed on photographic paper, not printed) on all these photos, that seems so wasteful and would save them so much money"

 

the truth is they actually LOOSE money when they print less photos. The bean counters have figured out the magic numbers, and when the photos are up and available, it is an impulse purchase, thus they sell more and make more money. They can charge much more money for an actual photo than for a digital file, and people who look at digital files are less likely to ask for it printed.

 

On avg they sell about 18-25% of photos on display. If you like photos you see but something is wrong, they have people on ship who can retouch your photos for you (saw this in action on the UST). And like someone else mentioned, if you cant find your photo, they have them all digital, and you can have them look through the files to find yours. We have done this a couple times... one night on formal night our photog took like 15 pics, but only 2 were up, we wanted to see they others. They were able to pull them instantly.

[JimmyVWine]

When we took the grandchildren to D____Land we bought a photography package where the photographers scanned our card at different venues before taking our photos.

 

I think you are asking my same question, as I also previously sailed on the D___ship.

 

There is no prohibition against using the name "Disney" on this board, either in the context of its parks or its cruise line. Many of us here visit the parks and many of us have sailed on their ships (myself included.)

[jurenpamis]

Just had a rough trip on the Caribbean Princess, but got some good shots by one of the photographers and decided to purchase the full package of prints and digital images.

 

Unfortunately, after going back twice to pick up the prints - some were missing - and then waiting to have the images manually loaded to the USB while I stood there because it wasn't ready, I came home to realize that not all of the images that we have printed are on the USB in digital form.

 

Is there any hope of getting those digital images from Princess now that they are underway with the next week's worth of cruisers onboard?

[Colo Cruiser]

Just had a rough trip on the Caribbean Princess, but got some good shots by one of the photographers and decided to purchase the full package of prints and digital images.

 

Unfortunately, after going back twice to pick up the prints - some were missing - and then waiting to have the images manually loaded to the USB while I stood there because it wasn't ready, I came home to realize that not all of the images that we have printed are on the USB in digital form.

 

Is there any hope of getting those digital images from Princess now that they are underway with the next week's worth of cruisers onboard?

 

I would say you are out of luck.

[Womble99]

Just had a rough trip on the Caribbean Princess, but got some good shots by one of the photographers and decided to purchase the full package of prints and digital images.

 

Unfortunately, after going back twice to pick up the prints - some were missing - and then waiting to have the images manually loaded to the USB while I stood there because it wasn't ready, I came home to realize that not all of the images that we have printed are on the USB in digital form.

 

Is there any hope of getting those digital images from Princess now that they are underway with the next week's worth of cruisers onboard?

 

I'm with you, we just got off a two week cruise yesterday and found that with the last update to the thumb drive they managed to over write well over 100+ photos with just the last 6 so all we have is those last 6 now that we are home.

 

Still waiting to hear back from Princess as to whether they are able to retrieve the files from the ship.....