On Board Photos

[PelicanBill]

I have a lot of knowledge of the Disney Photopass system... I am involved in network support for the system.

 

You would scan people's cruise ID cards as photos are taken, so that when you go to the kiosk you can bring up the pictures that belong to you.

 

TO get people to buy them I would recommend putting up monitors around the ship which do a constant slide show of the photos from earlier in the day or last night... so when you see a good one of you you might do it.

 

You could even view the pictures on your TV in your cabin and purchase there.

 

They could offer much more interesting formats.. we don't like so many 8x10s of the candids but would buy in 5x7... and we would buy packages of mixed sizes for the nice formals!

 

And if they put up a microwave Ethernet link for the ship when in port they could upload all the photos and keep them available for a few weeks after each cruise.

 

There is truly a lot of wasted cost to print all those pictures that don't get purchased!

[EBFURR]

We always wind up buying most all of the pictures that are taken. My wife hunts them down, puts them aside and then we buy them near the end of the week. It is the single largest item on our seapass account, even more than my bar tab, which is quite a feat. We have never regretted buying the photos after we got home.

We do agree that the system RCCL uses is outdated. They probably loose a large number of sales because people simply cannot find their pictures, especially the casual ones. The waste and environmental concern of disposing of all the unsold pictures (paper) and disposal of all the chemicals to process the unsold pics is significant. This has to have an impact on the price. We agree that the prices are too high, but we buy them anyway.

We like the digital/kiosk idea a lot. They would need a large number of the kiosk stations, though. At daughter's cheerleading events they do digital photos and set up several laptops for viewing/ordering. The lines can get quite long, as some people will take a very long time to find and view their pictures, discuss which ones they like, etc.

One side effect of the kiosk arrangement would be that in addition to "chair hog" and "table hog" threads, we would also have "kiosk hog" threads.

The scanning the seapass idea is a good one. It would work really well for the formal and other "posed" shots, but maybe not as well for other "around the ship", "on the beach", etc. shots. They definitely would need some portable hardware and of course would need the consent of the subject to scan the card. Perhaps they could throw some of the casual shots into a "pool" that could be browsed by anyone.

The best idea on this thread IMHO is that scanning your card and linking it to your pictures would allow you to view them on your cabin TV and order as you do excursions. This is not difficult technology-wise and would no doubt produce sales. You could also browse the "pool" of un-linked photos to see if you are in there.

Using the combination of kiosk and in-room viewing would provide adequate visibility and would eliminate the unnecessary printing of all of those unwanted photos.

[CRUZFOOLS]

Ali-in-texas: $20 For An 8 X 10