Welcome to Town Square Theater, Presented by Nikon, and now almost entirely run by automated PhotoPass cameras.
Much like the popular Darth Vader meet and greet in Star Wars Launch Bay at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, which recently implemented automated cameras, a new automated PhotoPass “photographer” has been installed at the Mickey and Minnie meet and greet in the Magic Kingdom.
Over in Rehearsal Room 4, which is known as Mickey’s dressing room, a set of bookshelves nestled with two stacked, embedded cameras now take the place of actual human PhotoPass photographers.
Character Attendants are still present during your experience as they help guide the meet and greet and direct guests to stare and smile at the PhotoPass box––I mean, bookshelf. If you ask, they can still take photos with your phone, but again, they aren’t trained PhotoPass photographers. (Although, I have had some character attendants take really good photos, too.)
The way it’s built in is rather clever as the cameras are in between the books, but they didn’t really add faux book spines over the camera boxes to mask them too.
As you can see in the photo above, the flash actually comes from one of the book spines.
Mickey and Minnie are in their Celebration garb for just a few more weeks, but it seems these automated PhotoPass boxes are here to stay at meets.
Once finished, you tap your MagicBand, ticket, or scan your Memory Maker card to redeem your photos, which come out all out of frame and timed poorly, due to the automatic timed shutter intervals of the cameras.
Many readers have written in expressing their concerns for the increasing lack of PhotoPass photographers in the parks, especially after the implementation of other PhotoPass boxes at other meet and greet locations like Tinker Bell’s meet and greet in the Town Square Theater. What do you think of these new PhotoPass automated boxes?
The $170 splurge always felt worth it for the captured priceless moments.
Will we be better off giving a CM our iPhone for pics now? A sentient CM rates better than a digital timer.
Sometime after 06 Photopass had their own leadership then Photopass was put under leadership of Entertainment which was a mistake. Entertainment’s goal was to create memories while Photopass’s goal was preserving the memories so the way’s of doing thing are different. Since then the number of Photopass CM’S has reduced & now the automatic camera’s are being used in more locations. Now they are great for taking pictures in the middle of rides since they can be timed to take the picture after the ride passes a certain point while a CM cannot be that precise plus they do not have to pay a automatic camera. So somebody up high in leadership needs to correct this error plus others that they have made!
This is really sad. Some of the best pictures that we have from the photopass program are things only a live person can capture. Like our 4 year old running up to give Mickey a hug. Then Mickey bends down to hug him back. Most of the best pictures are taken before the “official” picture is taken.
100% this!!!
If we want them to hire photographers again we should “boycott” memory maker. I love about 90% of the photos and the experiences I have had with the photographers. I can’t imagine these photo boxes will actually capture great memories that are worthy of the hefty price tag.
I don’t plan on doing memory maker on my next trip but I will stop at one of these locations and see how the photos compare.
Will the on-site cast member still take pictures with phones? Or should we not even bother waiting in line if we aren’t going to do the photo pass?!
They will, but they’re not trained photographers, so don’t expect Photopass-quality shots from the attendants. As of today though, they got rid of the photo boxes at this location and brought the actual photographers back.
I think it is a bad idea. The photo pass photographers are usually good at letting you know when they are about to snap pics so you can try to make each pic as good as it can be. They can also move to make sure everything is framed correctly. Have I had some pics not done perfect…sure, but for the most part they help with the magic. We always buy the memory maker as I have 2 young kids. We get a LOT of pics while there. I would prefer a flesh and blood photographer instead of Disney’s new cheap “photo booth” cameras
Random poor photos, that’s what all these price increases give us
I think this is the epitome of cheap, cheerless, and soulless. A big part of what I LOVE about Disney World is the wonderful, friendly, and helpful cast members. They are just as important to the experience as Cinderella’s Castle.
Not pleased. In July we went to visit Tinkerbell and my daughter had spent hours making a little fairy house for her. The photo box did not catch any of the points at which my daughter was giving her the house. It missed all those expressions, all those smiles, the shock on Tinkerbell’s face, everything. It only caught after the fact when we were posing. So upset by this.
Any examples of what the photos look like with the new system?
It’s cool, guests are only waiting 60 minutes for this character interaction and paying $169 on top of the ticket price for professional memory maker photos with Disney’s most important and famous character. A kiosk can totally do the job and sense the emotional impact of this experience better than a real person. No way this ever backfires.
I think I may detect a little sarcasm here. You are right paying for the service and then getting unsatisfactory service is for the birds. I expect better from Disney. Lord knows we are paying for it!