All-Inclusive Digital Photo Package for Families?

[AngryBirdah]

Hi All,

 

I had searched the forum and found several related threads, but none of them followed-up.  We always buy lots of photos on cruises and I love that MSC offers this all-inclusive package.  However, I'm confused as to the logistics of it.  We have 7 of us split between 2 cabins.  Per the conditions of the package, it seems to say that we can only get photos of the people in our cabin, and not of travelling members in other cabins.  However some folks seem to report that this is either not the case or not enforced (especially if you get a VIP Photo Card to scan to instead of a room key)?  If I have to pay for 2 all-inclusive packages (1 for each cabin), then that's fine... but I don't want to unnecessarily overpay either.

 

Does anyone have any recent experience on how multi-cabin groups are handled with this photo package?  We'll be on Seashore.

 

Many thanks!

[Tori2727]

What was the verdict on this?

[new_cruiser_75]

I can't find any reliable info on this either and am super curious as we have our family spread out over 3 rooms

[AngryBirdah]

@Tori2727 @new_cruiser_75

Hilarious that I lamented about not finding any conclusive information, but then never came back to my own thread to document what I learned 😓

 

Funny enough, we're going on another Spring Break cruise next month, and I honestly couldn't remember how we handled it.  So I came and searched my posts here and found that I did make a post (on a different thread) that detailed our experience:

 

"So the terms and conditions of the photo package say that it covers the people in your stateroom and not others, including family in other staterooms.  We had 2 cabins with 7 total family members.  I ended up buying a package for each cabin so we wouldn't run into any issues.  In the end, all of the pictures of everyone in our group went on my wife's card... even solo pictures of the grandparents from the other cabin.  No one questioned or gave issue.  The photo staff were slammed on the last night of the cruise, which was the only time we interacted with them (to manually add some photos from Ocean Cay where they weren't scanning cards at picture time).  

 

I would say that if you take pictures with other cruisers, but you two are in the pictures, then you should be just fine.  If you start trying to collect photos of random shipmates that don't involve you, then you may get questioned.  Buying in advance is a good plan... $149 is much cheaper than $199+15% onboard!

 

I think we could have gotten away with just having the one package, but decided to be safe.

[AngryBirdah]

In case anyone happens upon this thread, this was my March 2022 experience:

 

Photo Package:

• Before the trip, I wanted to buy the "All-In Digital Photo Package," but was left confused over the rules regarding using it for my extended family across two staterooms.  The fine print clearly says that one package doesn't cover everyone, but some people said that it wasn't a problem.  A cruiser from a few weeks ago specifically asked the photo staff about it and they indicated that buying two packages would be necessary to ensure that all photos were captured.  To be safe, I bought each stateroom a package.
• The photographers did as good a job as others we've had.  We did a couple of nice portrait sessions in the photo area and a sunset shoot at the Bridge of Sighs.  We also got an Ocean Cay welcome photo set.  However, we missed embarkation, which was disappointing.  As well, since we didn't eat in the MDR, we missed out on many photo ops, both at dinner and at stations set up on Decks 5-7 during the dinner hours.
• In the end, all of the photos were collected onto my wife's card... even those featuring only the grandparents from the adjoining cabin. In theory this shouldn't have been allowed, but no one gave us any trouble.  That means that we wasted $149 by buying a package for my mom.  Of course, if we hadn't done that, then surely someone on the photo staff would have caught on to the number of people and made us buy a package for the other cabin at $199+15% in order to get all the photos.  Oh well.
• We may have overpaid for the digital package, and inadvertently not maximized the number of pictures we should have gotten, but in the end we were happy with the memories that were captured