Photo Packages ?....SATISFIED or NOT ?

while on a recent GOS sailing ....I purchased the "Unlimited Photo Package"...regular price $249.00 and sale priced at $199.00

thinking $199.00 was a bargain for the 37 (8"x10") portraits we received I was truly mistaken.

of the 37 portraits taken 34 are out of focus/blurry ~ bad lighting/dark ~ others too much glare and all 37 are not centered....:o

we had pics taken by 4 different photographers during the cruise with each photographer trying to get us into crazy poses and hurrying us through the process....:(

anyone else who purchased a photo package dissatisfied with the quality of the portraits ?

i really feel that I wasted $199.00 on some truly disappointing photos that should of been lasting memories for my new family and I.....:(

should I notify RCL of my displeasure with this photo package purchase ?......

thanks and I wait all replies and feedback

I think for the money you paid you should be totally satisfied. RC should be told that the quality does not warrant the cost. I don't think you should expect any thing. But, RC should do something about the photographers they use. Of all of the things on Carnival I disliked, I did think there photographers were very good.

This is also a cautionary tale. Paying for the photo package before you see all of the pics seems unfair. And at the price you paid, you should have excellent pics.

Perhaps if you send copies of a couple of the really bad pics, they will see your side of the story. Remember a picture speaks a thousand words, or something like that.

Its not rci, they use a contractor. The photogs are not ship/rci employees

http://www.image.com/

I have never understood buying all your pics before they are even taken. Even pros just charge a sitting fee and if you like the pics, then you buy what you want

I will also add that you can review your pics on ship and if you want something done to a pic they can change/fix stuff, but it takes a couple days. They are very busy

thanks for the replies...and agree I will not pre-pay for photos again....truly do feel ripped-off and wil be contacting Images tomorrow by phone.

after looking at all the pics I really feel my 11 year old is more qualified and could have taken better pics with her Ipod.

i will post the outcome which will hopefully be favorable.

I got the all inclusive package on the Jewel and was very satisfied. It was a 4 night cruise - $150. I got about 52 pictures - could have gotten more, but, my friends were uncooperative. I would do it again, particularly if I had a family. How long was your cruise that you only got 37 pictures? Note to future cruisers: If you book the unlimited package, take as many pictures as you can, the more you take, the better your chances of finding ones you like. Families usually come back with hundreds of photos from week long cruises. :)

Maureen was a 7 day Bermuda cruise.....every night at least some if not all of the family members had pics taken....and the next day they were found in the gallery displayed.....on the last night we collected all the pics......even then the youngest daughter felt certain many pics taken were missing and or not displayed.....so we undoubtedly did not get all that were taken.

I never buy the photo package as I don't think it's good value for money when you can take your own pics and print the ones you want with a good $50 printer.

Aaah, that's another thing, go down every day and pick out your pics, they will hold them for you in a folder. The next day, you will remember what pics were taken and where. Also, they start throwing them out as they go along. Did you not get any taken other than the formal dinner pics? I prefer casual pics showing everybody having a good time. I tried to post a few but they came out really big, I had to delete them.

Maureen we did both formal nights and other nights as well.....even did the pics when first boarding in Baltimore....one thing i did not see or maybe we missed it was a picture op near the gangway when the ship arrived in Bermuda......every cruise i have ever been on has had a dockside pic op when getting off and re-boarding in the different ports of call.

On our last cruise we did the unlimited photo package whereby we paid for the photographs and the discs

Being 7 of us we thought we could print all the photos off from the cd on our return and share the copies.

What we were not told is that the discs only let you print so many before you paid further costs.

I will not be doing a photo package on my next cruise

If you purchased the unlimited CD, you should be able to extract the photos to one computer and share with everyone. If you could not extract all the photos, there is a problem and you should contact them.

We got the unlimited digital package on FOS this spring. We had 6 people in our party (my immediate family spread across 3 cabins) and a larger group of friends onboard. We took photos at every opportunity. I did go through the prints every single day looking for all of our prints and they stored them away into a folder. I also sat with the prints and went through the photos in my account at the kiosk. I identified every photo that was not in my account and had them add them. The photo recognition is good not not perfect. By the last night I had a stack of 330 prints which I then purchased in addition to the digitals.

Was it worth it for the 330 photos we got? Absolutely! If you are going to spend that kind of money, you need to make it worthwhile. It did take work on my part but we wanted a lot of photos. If you aren't keeping track that your photos are all accounted for and included, you will be disappointed. My kids have already requested we do it again this spring on FOS.

I don;t think a lot of people do this every cruise but the photographers and the photo people knew my group quite well by the end and were all very helpful and accommodating. I went down the very first day and introduced myself and told them I had repurchased the package.

I can totally see where people have bad experiences but we did not. Yes, not all photos are perfect but we got a lot of really great ones.

I was thinking about purchasing the unlimited package on my upcoming Med cruise, but now I'm having second thoughts. This is not the first post I've seen from someone who was very disappointed in the quality of the pictures they received. Once I thought about it, I realized that on land I would never hire a photographer without first checking their work, so I guess you could use the same philosophy on a cruise ship.

I don't know, I guess I will need to think about it some more.

I was very impressed with the quality of the photos, regarding ringing them to sort the ones out I couldn't use from the disc, there is a time limit in which to do this or you have had it, like me

We enjoyed the unlimited package. Instead of dodging all the port photographers, we went to every one.

Photos were on par with big chain studios.

We did the package on our Alaska cruise. I can go both ways with this. We liked the photo's that were taken (most of them). Some were out of focus, blurry, eyes closed, bad glares; but others were very good. We made it a point to get every photo we could as we new we paid for them.

One of my biggest disappointments was that the disk did not have, not even half, of the photo's on it :(. We had a heck of a time with the photo lab trying to make sure the images were on the disk. Almost every time we tried to look the machines were down so you were told to come back later. Well buy end of 7 days we just gave up and decided to take what we had. BAD MISTAKE!!!!!

Would I pay for them again, maybe, but not sure as it was alot of time spent trying to make sure we got our money worth.

I agree on that, I would not do an unlimited package again

Two more comments ...

First, the quality of these prints is excellent. I have had reprints made of a few of the digitals and the quality from Costco are nowhere near the originals. They even had a delay on the ship one night because there were some issues with the color on one evenings photos (for all the ones taken at one location) but they fixed it and they looked great when they were available.

Second, although I was very diligent about making sure we had all of the digitals in the account, I still missed a few. They were very helpful in tracking down the missing digitals after the fact for me. Since I had the prints I was able to give them the image number and they were able to send me the files a few weeks later. The customer service was excellent.

contacted via phone Images aka "MyCruisePhotos.com @ 800-772-3470...finally after nearly 5 plus minutes the phone was answered...:confused:

after explaining my displeasure to a sales rep a case file has been opened and I am to send them a few sample photos of the portraits.....after receiving the photos they will review them and a decision will be rendered as she informed me that they may be able to "touch up & re-center" some of the photos...:rolleyes:

she did explain to me that all pics taken onboard are kept for 6 weeks after a sailing then they are deleted from their files....so if anyone is not pleased with the photos/portraits/disks they receive do contact them within 6 weeks time period after sailing.

I also mentioned that I will think long & hard about buying picture packages on our next 2 cruises that we have already booked.....:eek:

so now the waiting game begins as I will experience first hand what customer satisfaction means to MyCruisePhotos.com.

as before mentioned I will post the outcome of what thus far has been a $199.00 waste of my money....:(

also appreciate those who posted on this thread and shared their photo package experiences..whether they were good or bad....:)

I have to say, I only dealt with their customer service through the website and emails. It did take a few days and a few iterations but they were able to get me all of the missing images.

Good Luck OP.

thanks for the replies...and agree I will not pre-pay for photos again....truly do feel ripped-off and wil be contacting Images tomorrow by phone.

 

after looking at all the pics I really feel my 11 year old is more qualified and could have taken better pics with her Ipod.

 

i will post the outcome which will hopefully be favorable.

I'm sorry that happened to you. Glad that you shared your experience for other unsuspecting victims in the future. I know that I'd be super-ticked off too about losing $199 on crap photographs.

We did the photo package on our Freedom cruise in May. We didn't buy the unlimited, and I wouldn't unless we were a family with children and could get some of our kids.

We did buy the 10 digital photos and liked that we could choose from our photos once we got home. Out of all the ones we had taken, we didn't have a problem at all finding 10 that we liked.

That being said, I don't think we will get these on our February cruise. We are cruising with another couple and I have a good camera. We will take photos of them and them of us. We might purchase a photo or two on board of the four of us, but other than that, I don't see us buying any ship photos.

after my earlier phone call @ 1:00 pm...I was told they would immediately be sending me 2 emails (one for the case # they established & the other with a link so I could send/remit a few of the bad pictures)....well nearly 8 hours later and no emails or other correspondence from this company.....thinking so much for customer satisfaction from Images aka MyCruisePictures.com.

will give it a few more days and see what happens.....one thing I truly despise is a company that is all talk and no action towards providing customer satisfaction.....the ball is in their court now and time will tell whether they make a wrong right.

after my earlier phone call @ 1:00 pm...I was told they would immediately be sending me 2 emails (one for the case # they established & the other with a link so I could send/remit a few of the bad pictures)....well nearly 8 hours later and no emails or other correspondence from this company.....thinking so much for customer satisfaction from Images aka MyCruisePictures.com.

 

will give it a few more days and see what happens.....one thing I truly despise is a company that is all talk and no action towards providing customer satisfaction.....the ball is in their court now and time will tell whether they make a wrong right.

 

 

 

File a dispute with your credit card company and the photographer will call your back PDQ.