First off, DSoD is #39 in Amazon’s “Humor” section! Wow! Thanks to everyone who is buying the book. Feel free to write to me here if you have any questions/feedback about anything you read in the book or on this blog. I might even post your response (with your permission, of course) as I’m doing here with reader “Mark”. Here’s what Mark had to say:
Very interesting book - I've enjoyed reading it. Two thoughts I wanted to send your way in case there's ever a version 2. -You say that resort key cards are only checked at Stormalong Bay. That had been my experience as well, but just about a month ago I was staying at the Polynesian and there was a woman walking around the pool/beach area asking any non-wrist banded guests if they had a resort key card. If they could show a current Poly resort key she'd hand them wrist bands for however many people they said were in their party (obviously this could be exploited). If not she'd ask them to leave. I even heard a guest say that she had gotten breakfast at Kona and try to use that to convince them to let her stay but it didn't work. This was even more aggressive than Stormalong Bay as the CM was actively walking around the pool area looking for non-wrist banded guests whereas at Stormalong Bay I've only ever seen them doing perimeter checks (then again, I haven't been to Stormalong Bay in quite a while). I don't know if this was just because it was July, and obviously the policy may change at different times of year. -You talk about Photopass sharing as a way to get around the high price of a Photopass CD. Honestly, why use Photopass at all? To me, that's something only suckers do, akin to paying rack rate at a Deluxe Resort. All Photopass photographers will take pictures of your party with your camera for free, and I'm 90% sure they're required to do this as a matter of policy. The first time I ever saw a Photopass CM, my girlfriend and I were looking for someone to take our picture, and the Photopass CM volunteered to do it with our camera. When we asked to be sure that this was free, he responded, "Sure, that's what I'm here for." Since then, I have always asked Photopass photographers to take photos with my camera and never been refused. The quality has been hit and miss, but honestly, that's the way it is with normal Photopass anyway. The nice thing about doing it this way is you can also set up your camera with the correct exposure settings before handing it to the Photopass CM and if you're lucky, your photos may turn out a little better as a result. If there's no Photopass CMs around, most CMs of any kind will do the same thing for you, and honestly, the photos they take will probably be about as good as the ones from a Photopass CM. To me, the only time Photopass sharing makes sense is if you don't have a camera with you. So take that FWIW. Thanks for putting this book together. Really enjoying it so far. -Mark
Mark has two very good points. First, beware of pool hopping at the deluxe resorts without either a valid room key, or one of the Tyvek wristbands from eBay (stay tuned for a future post about this, w/pix of me in my bathing suit wearing said wristbands @ Stormalong Bay!).
Secondly, if you don’t mind carrying your own camera and don’t really care about getting fancy Disney borders or characters in your pix, there’s not much reason to use PhotoPass. You’re really paying for the convenience of the service, which certainly isn’t worth the $120 they normally charge. Is it worth the $15-$20 you’ll pay in a PhotoPass share? That’s up to you to decide!
Thanks again for the feedback, Mark! Keep ’em coming, readers!