In my research, I came across the option to download pictures taken in the park by professional photographers. I couldn’t help but wonder, is the Disney PhotoPass cost worth it?

The Big Question: Is Disney PhotoPass Worth It?

Pretty sure you’re with me on this: I’m all about making the most of my vacation dollars. After all, the more you save, the more family vacations you can take, and the more you can focus on enjoying time with your kids (rather than on your dwindling bank account). So when I was planning my budget Disney vacation, I wanted to ensure every dollar was spent well.

Did it make sense to pay extra for the Disney PhotoPass? Did the Disney PhotoPass cost outweigh the benefits? I found the research I did to be super confusing, so I’m so glad you’re here. Instead of bopping all around on the internet, you can find in one spot everything you need to know about the Disney Photo Pass.

After my family and I spent three days between Disneyland and California Adventure, I have some wisdom to share, whether you’re a Disney pro or going to Disney for the first time. So if you’re wondering, is the Disney PhotoPass worth the cost?, read on. I’ll break down the pros, cons and bottom line of whether you need the Disney PhotoPass.

And, since I already know you’re excited about your Disney vacation, I’m pretty sure you’ll also want my free Disney quotes printable. I designed 5 different inspiring Disney quotes so you can put ’em up on your fridge, in a frame or by your desk at work to remind you of your upcoming vacation! Here’s how to get yours:

Disney PhotoPass cost, logistics, and details

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all that Disney has to offer, don’t fear. I’ve detailed everything you need to know about the Disney PhotoPass, below!

What is the Disney Photo Pass?

Throughout Disney properties, professional photographers post up at popular spots and take photos for you. When we went to California Adventure, for example, a Disney PhotoPass photographer was taking images with Buzz Lightyear.

The photographer will scan the QR code on your Disney app that connects the images to your PhotoPass account. If you don’t have the app, they’ll scan a QR code on a credit card-sized card that you can show to other photographers to have all your images in one place.

You can either buy the photos individually or buy daily access to Disney PhotoPass.

What’s the Disney PhotoPass cost?

You get unlimited Disney PhotoPass downloads when you buy MaxPass, which is the mobile version of FastPass. So the Disney PhotoPass cost is $10/day.

Some Disney annual Passports include a year of free downloads on the PhotoPass, but this depends on the terms in which you bought the Annual Passport. (Confusing, I know!)

I often get asked if you can buy one photo from Disney PhotoPass. Whilst you certainly can, there is a ctach! If you opt to download photos individually, they cost $16.95 apiece. Yipes!

Clearly, this makes zero sense, since you can get an entire day’s worth of photos plus the features of Disney MaxPass for less than that.

Read More: 14 Most Common Disney Mistakes And How To Avoid Them)

What are the benefits of Disney PhotoPass access with MaxPass?

Lots of people add MaxPass to their Disney passes automatically. After all, it’s really convenient to get a FastPass ticket via your phone instead of going to a physical FastPass ticket distribution (which sometimes has lines of its own). FastPass essentially holds you a place in line, which is a clutch for popular attractions at peak times.

Yet when you’re doing Disney on a budget, don’t automatically shell out money for anything without considering the pros and cons! There are so many add-ons and extras that they’ll add up fast.

That said, there are a lot of benefits of using the Disney PhotoPass MaxPass:

• Someone else takes the photos. Isn’t it nice to give up responsibility for something on your family vacation?
• You can be in the photos. Don’t you want to be in a few photos? Please note that the professional Disney PhotoPass photographers are also happy to take photos with your phone if you don’t have PhotoPass.
• The images are high quality. Downloads are high-resolution.
• Get magical overlays. If a Disney photographer asks your child to hold up her hand just so, you might take a look at the photo afterward and find that Tinkerbell is perched on her finger! That’s the magic of Magic Shots. (These opportunities are not available at every PhotoPass location.)
• The photographers are professional. You can depend on getting a good image: No cut-off heads or fingers in the frame.

What are the cons of the Disney PhotoPass?

There aren’t a ton of cons of the Disney PhotoPass, other than the cost. Some people will shrug at the Disney PhotoPass cost—$10/day isn’t prohibitive for many. But if you’re doing Disney on a budget, every cent counts.

Here are the other cons of the Disney PhotoPass:

• Scarcity. There aren’t many Disney PhotoPass photographers throughout the park.
• Photo Pass photographers are hard to find. If you filter the map on the Disney app, it will show where photographers sometimes are posted, but it’s not updated in real-time, so you find them based on luck.
• Most characters don’t have a PhotoPass photographer. When we visited Disney over three days, I think there were only 4 Photo Pass photographers at the Disney characters we met: Buzz Lightyear, Minnie Mouse, Mickey Mouse, and Tinkerbell.
• Photos aren’t that different. When you compare photos taken with an iPhone to those taken with the Disney PhotoPass, the quality isn’t much different. (Scroll down to see a side-by-side comparison.)

Is Disney PhotoPass worth it & do you need it?

As with most family travel planning questions, the answer is individual. That said, let me help you with the decision.

If you’re already set on adding the MaxPass to your Disney passes, the answer is of course yes: You get the Disney PhotoPass automatically when you use MaxPass.

So what did we do?

The first day of our budget Disney vacation, I bought Disney MaxPasses for our family of four—for $40. The MaxPass cost would have been fine except we didn’t use the FastPass feature at all! You see, my kids are too little to do most of the rides that actually have the FastPass feature.

What’s more, we only met one character on our first day that had a Disney PhotoPass photographer. And when I saw the photos after the fact, I could hardly tell the difference between the photo the PhotoPass photographer took (on the left) and the one my mother-in-law took on her iPhone (on the right).

So after hardly using the Disney MaxPass on Day 1 of our Disney vacation, we didn’t buy it the following days. And I didn’t miss it at all.

Signs you don’t need to invest in the Disney PhotoPass cost

Adding the PhotoPass on your park pass (via MaxPass, at $10/person/day) doesn’t make sense for everyone. Here are the signs you don’t need the Disney PhotoPass:

• You have a decent camera on your phone.
• Your kids are little and won’t ride most of the rides with FastPass features.
• You don’t mind asking other people to take your photo (This is my go-to way of avoiding the Disney PhotoPass cost)
• You consistently take decent photos of your kids—ones that aren’t blurry, cropped weird or with fingers in the frame.

Read More: Anxiety At Disney: The Anxious Mom’s Survival Guide

Disney PhotoPass takeaways

Here are my last 2 pieces of advice to make the most of your Disney PhotoPass.

Let’s say that you’re willing to pay the Disney PhotoPass price but your kids are little or uninterested in the FastPass rides. Then you can buy just one MaxPass.

You’ll still get the PhotoPass feature at just $10/day, and if you’re using MaxPass primarily for the photography, not everyone in your group needs one. Just designate one person to be the official CEO of Disney PhotoPass—and be responsible for having the pass’s QR code ready for the photographer.

If you’re still on the fence about whether or not the Disney PhotoPass is worth it, here’s my advice: Don’t buy it at first.

Get a QR code from one of the PhotoPass photographers and show the card to all the others you encounter that day. At the end of the day you can decide whether you want to buy a $10 MaxPass and connect it to that day’s photos.

That way, if you only see one Disney PhotoPass photographer in a day (like we did), you can skip buying that day and save your $10.

I hope this article on the Disney PhotoPass cost, details and logistics was helpful. It’s actually the post I wish I’d found and read before our first Disney vacation.

If you liked it, will you please share by pinning to your Disney Pinterest board or emailing to a friend who’s planning a Disney trip? I’d so appreciate that because they could use the practical, detail-oriented advice, too.

And if you haven’t already read my post detailing how my family of 4 spent 3 days at Disneyland for just $138, don’t miss out! In that post, I detail every step I took to save $2,289!

Finally, don’t forget to snag your own free Disney quotes printable!

The post Is the Disney PhotoPass cost worth it—or a waste of money? appeared first on To & Fro Fam.

Lost Lake, Oregon on Mt. Hood: Adventure + Fun

Just two hours from Portland, this breathtakingly beautiful spot has everything you need for the perfect family day trip: hiking, boating, camping, yurts, cabins and a general store fully stocked with ice cream. They’ve made it so easy to enjoy Lost Lake, Oregon that it’s practically a crime not to go.

I know that planning day trips with kids can be a little tricky—how far do you go? Will there be something to interest all the kids, no matter their ages? How much food do you pack? Will the hike be too long?—but since I’ve already made this trek, I’m here to share all the details.

Read on to learn all about visiting Lost Lake, Oregon with kids (or even without ’em!). You’ll want to head up Mt. Hood as soon as you can—or at least pin this post for later!

A perfect kids’ hike around Lost Lake

Hiking with my family is pretty much my all-time-favorite thing to do, but we sometimes struggle to find new destinations that won’t be too hard for my kids.

Hiking around Lost Lake with kids is a no-brainer: Not only is it gorgeous, offering postcard-perfect views of Mt. Hood, but it’s entirely flat.

Level 10 travel tip: Part of the loop around Lost Lake is made up of boardwalks. Just go clockwise from the general store to hit up this section. Know, though, this is the busiest section of the trail because it runs along the day use area.

The loop is 3.25 miles, which made it on the long side for my little hikers (ages 2 and 4). My 4-year-old managed the whole hike by herself but I ended up carrying Kiwi for about half of the hike.

Like with all hikes with young children, you’ll want to allow for plenty of stops. While hiking Lost Lake with kids, you might see newts swimming near the shore, patches of snow (we found several even on a hot May day!) and the unfortunately named but absolutely gorgeous blooms of the skunk cabbage. (Check out this picture guide of Lost Lake wildflowers for more to spot!)

About halfway around the lake, some of the trail is washed out. There are two or three stretches of approximately 15 feet where you’ll have to balance on rocks in the river to continue (or do as Hubs did and simply take off your shoes to walk through the water). There are impromptu trails that go up and around these sections but they’re steep and not suitable for young children.

Right in between these stretches, there is a rock beach—perfect for taking a power-up break with the kids. We stopped for snacks but my girls were too busy wading in the cold water and throwing rocks to eat.

Overall, hiking Lost Lake with kids was one of the most rewarding hikes we’ve done with children in Oregon.

Boating on Lost Lake with kids

Last summer while hiking around Trillium Lake, we decided we want a canoe. We haven’t made the leap (yet!) but we rented one at Lost Lake for a practice run. The entire family—including the kids and even our dog—were 100% on board.

Lost Lake offers incredible views of Mt. Hood’s snowy peak, and you get a perfect vantage point from the middle of the lake.

You can rent canoes, row boats, kayaks and stand-up paddle boards for between $20-25/hour at the general store. Note that during peak season (June-September), they enforce a 2-hour minimum. Life jackets are included in the rental price.

You can also bring your own canoe or other watercraft. The rental price is a bit pricey, but the experience of paddling around Lost Lake and taking in the view of Mt. Hood from the water is priceless.

We’ve been back to Lost Lake since that first day trip from Portland, of course. On our most recent visit—when we camped at Lost Lake—we brought our paddle board. Friends we camped with also brought a kids kayak (which we’re purchasing for our kids’ birthday!).

Our kids are now 9 and 7, old enough to paddle out onto the lake. We also love having one or both kids on a SUP and an adult paddling the crew around.

The views of Mt. Hood from the middle of Lost Lake are stunning. It’s no wonder that this is one of the most-photographed places in Oregon.

Lost Lake Campground

The Lost Lake Campground is a wonderful spot for camping on Mt. Hood. In fact, the campsites here are the nicest of anywhere we’ve camped in Oregon.

That’s a big claim.

Campsites at Lost Lake Campground are enormous. We camp with an 8-person tent to fit our family of 4 plus 2 dogs (one of whom is 100 pounds). Well, our enormous tent fit easily—and we could have fit another one of the same size on our campsite, with tons of room to spare.

Our campsite wasn’t the exception. We camped with 2 other families, for a total of 6 adults and 8 kids. All the campsites were huge! All the kids ran back and forth between the sites, rode their bikes on the loop, explored the woods behind the campsites and even put on a talent show.

Lost Lake Campground has 148 spots, most of which can be reserved. (Reserve your Lost Lake camping trip here.) Reservations can be made up to 6 months in advance. For summer camping and weekend trips especially, reserve as far in advance as you can. These spots fill up fast. So if you want to camp at Lost Lake, Oregon in July, like we did, make your reservation in January.

There are no flush toilets or showers at the Lost Lake Campground. Well maintained vault toilets are stationed throughout the campgrounds. There are potable water spigots, too.

Lush woods of Doug fir and spruce surround the campgrounds. Our kids climbed logs, made forts and found plenty to do around the site.

Lost Lake Campground is not next to the lake, though. You can hike about a quarter-mile along the Old Growth Trail from Loop A to the South Day Use Area, which we did several times. The South Day Use Area is much less busy than the North Day Use Area because you don’t get the spectacular views of Mt. Hood from there. This area has easier access to the lake along with more picnic tables, though.

If you’re going to the lake for the day, you’ll probably want to drive to a day use area. That way you can pack your picnic, paddle boards or kayaks, dogs and whatever else you’ll bring. If you drive, go early to get a spot. Parking at Lost Lake day use areas is like a competitive sport.

Travel pro tip: Buy campfire wood on your drive in. You can buy it at the Lost Lake General Store for $9 a bundle, but it’s significantly cheaper at gas stations and grocery stores along the way.

Visiting Lost Lake with kids: Everything you need to know

• Lost Lake is just under a 2-hour drive from Portland. To make a whole day of your trip, stop in Mt. Hood on the way back for ice cream—or in Parkdale’s Solera Brewery for even more stunning views of the mountain.
• Entrance to the lake is $9 per car. Parks passes are not valid because the lake is run by a private company, Lost Lake Resort.
• There are vault toilets near the general store but no other toilet facilities on the lakeshore trail.
• The best view of Mt. Hood from the Lost Lake trail is about a half-mile counter-clockwise from the general store, or just a short distance from parking at the North Day Use Area. The viewpoint is well marked.
• Lost Lake is busy on warm days, and summer is peak visiting time. Arrive early (before 10am) for easiest access to parking.

If you liked this post, I know you’ll love my post on other family-friendly day trips from Portland, Oregon. Click on over because I know you’ll find more inspiration for travel with your kids!

Have you ever been to Lost Lake? Would you paddle a canoe with your kids?

The post Lost Lake, Oregon: Mt. Hood’s beautiful hike, camping + boating appeared first on To & Fro Fam.