Free The Dark Side of Disney by Leonard Kinsey

take your picture, and then they scan the card. Everybody in the family can get their own card, too, in case you get sick of Crazy Uncle Billy and decide to strike off on your own and get Photopass pictures of you drinking various alcoholic beverages around the world at Epcot. Then when you get home you type each card number into http://www.DisneyPhotoPass.com and all of the pictures from your entire vacation are there for you to preview! You can then edit the photos, delete incriminating ones, add fancy borders and other such nonsense, and then have them all put on a CD and shipped to you!
    Unfortunately, in typical Disney fashion they also charge out the ass for this service. Regardless of how many pictures you actually had taken, the cost is still about $120 for the CD. So if you only had eight pictures taken, and only one was actually in focus and properly exposed by the decidedly amateur-level photographer, you’re going to pay $120 for that one picture. Conversely, if you were there for a month and had 800 pictures taken, it still costs $120 for the CD (or multiple CDs if needed). The only catch is that you need to enter your card numbers within 30 days of having the pictures taken, and then you have 30 days after that to order your photos.
    Hopefully you’re starting to see how this system is ripe for exploitation. Some brilliant Dark-Sider realized that if a) you can enter as many cards as you want into the PhotoPass site, and b) they’ll send you as many pictures as you want, then c) multiple families visiting within a 30-day period can type their card numbers into the site and share a single CD. And thus was born the “PhotoPass Share”!
    I use TourGuideMike.com for my PhotoPass shares, but they’re organized on any number of WDW fan boards. The way it works is that someone becomes an “owner” for a particular group, meaning that this person will be the one who purchases the CD, makes copies of the CD for everyone in the group, and mails out the copies. Then people sign up for a particular group, depending on when they’ll be visiting WDW. Once there are enough people signed up (usually up to 10 families) the group is closed and everyone sends in the money for the PhotoPass pre-order via check or PayPal, the cost of which is split equally between the families. It usually ends up costing about $20 per family, which is a huge discount over the initial price and actually makes this service a bargain! When each family gets back from vacation they type their code into the site and wait. Once all of the families in the group have come home and entered their codes the “owner” orders the CD, makes copies, and sends out the copies to everyone in the group! The only downside is that you end up with a CD full of pictures of people you’ve never met before, but sometimes that ends up being interesting in a voyeuristic sort of way.
     
     
    HAVING FUN WITHOUT SPENDING A DIME
     
    Did you know that you could have an entirely fun-filled vacation at Walt Disney World without ever setting foot in the parks? While this isn’t something Disney advertises (because they want you to spend a ton of cash on park tickets), the resorts in particular offer enough amenities to make even the most jaded traveler squeal like an infant. Hell, you don’t even have to stay at one of the resorts to take advantage of some of these activities; just stay at a fleabag offsite, make a dining reservation at your favorite resort, and then drive over and park there!
    I’ve had many fun days just going around to the various WDW resorts, checking out the architecture, visiting their restaurants and food courts, and getting completely blasted at the various themed bars. The busses can take you from any park to any resort, or if you don’t want to buy park tickets you can use Downtown Disney as a hub for catching busses to the resorts. Alternately you can do “themed” tours, such as the Resort Monorail tour of The Contemporary, Polynesian,