Carnival Cruise Line: Pixels Plus Digital Photo Package Review

Have you heard about Carnival Cruise Line releasing photo packages?  There was a lot of excitement and now there is a lot of controversies…

Carnival announced on March 22, 2018, that pre-purchased photo packages were finally available! Since this was so close to our cruise on April 1st I decided to give it a try. At the time the three options were:

Pixels Package 1: 5 Photos and 1 Canvas Print for $99

Pixels Plus Package 2: All Your Prints for $199

Pixels Plus Digital Package 3: All Your Prints Plus Digital File for $249

As of April 16, 2018, the package prices are now as follows:

Pixels Package 1: 5 Photos and 1 Canvas Print for $99 – stayed the same

Pixels Plus Package 2: All Your Prints for $249

Pixels Plus Digital Package 3: All Your Prints Plus Digital File for $399

Note:  these are pre-purchase only!  You must go to Carnival.com to the Fun Shops and purchase your package prior to your cruise.  On the ship, the photos are the same cost as they have always been.

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Our experience

I really wanted the digital images so we went with the $249 package. A photo package is what you make of it, so we took lots of photos and definitely got our money’s worth! We got pictures from embarkation day and each port day.  There were photographers in the dining rooms during the Dr. Seuss Green Eggs & Ham Breakfast and also taking pictures in the evenings.  And of course, there are photo ops all over the ship!  On elegant evenings, the backdrops are glittery and well, elegant.  But they had some fantastic casual backdrops too that looked like you were on a beach or standing in front of a cruise ship.  One evening they had special Dr. Seuss backdrops where you could take pictures with the characters or even done the wig… or full costume and take funny pics.

Here are a few tips of what to expect and how to best use your package:

Activate your package

These are pre-purchase packages only.  So you will have a receipt delivered to your cabin on embarkation day of what package you purchased.  You must take this to the Pixels gallery to activate your package.  They will then give you instructions on how it will work.  What we were told, is that at the end of each day our photos will be printed and saved for us.  We were to come after 9:00 PM on the last night to pick them up.

The Carnival Breeze is a digital ship so they do not print all of the pictures.  This is why they have to print ours at the end of each day.  If you are on a traditional Pixels ship, you can go and gather all of the printed photos during the day and they will hold them for you for later pickup.

Fun note…. the digital only ships are really cool!  They will only print the photos from embarkation, but they have stations (like iPads) all over the ship where you can log in with your folio number and date of birth to browse your pictures.  There is even one in the Pixels gallery that is floor to ceiling so you can view them in almost life size!  We really liked doing this.  Also, you can view them all on the Carnival Hub app… and if you didn’t buy a photo package, you can purchase the ones you want directly from the app!  Gotta love technology!

Digital only ships are the Breeze, Magic, Vista, Horizon, Panorama, Conquest, Paradise and Victory.

Use the right cabin number

We had two cabins on this cruise and one photo package…  Let me back up here by saying that yes, this is allowed.  When Carnival first released these packages it stated ‘one package per cabin’; well may people complained and they corrected this.  There are many families like ours, who need two (or more) cabins to be comfortable.

The rules state that one person from one of your cabins must be in the photo. So, yes, your kids can take pictures with friends they meet onboard… we did!

Ok, so the package was linked to room 1249, but on occasion, one of the kids gave their room number of 1251.  I went to the Pixels gallery and they were supposed to link those photos to our package… but they did not.  I have put in a request online for these photos and I am sure I will get them… but what a hassle!  If you are in this circumstance, make sure you use the right number every time!

You’ve got it… use it!

There are photographers EVERYWHERE!  So if you get the package use it!  We took LOTS of photos!  Keep scrolling to see them…

Digital isn’t completely digital…

The digital package will include all photos’ digital copy on a flash drive for all but the last day of the cruise.  So if you are on a seven day cruise, days 1-6 will be on the flash drive but any photos taken on that 7th day will be in print format only.

Now let’s see these photos!!!

Embarkation day:

Port Day Photos:

Casual Photos:

And the snazzy ones from the two elegant nights:

And just for fun:

These are not all of the photos either!!!  Just a sampling of our favorites!  Each photographer takes multiple shots and YOU GET THEM ALL!

Again, a photo package is what you make out of it.  So I say, if you bought it, then use it!!!!

I am still keeping out the hopes that one day soon, Carnival will come up with an all digital package as this is ideally what my family would like to have.  Then we can print the few we want to frame and have the rest to put in digitally created photo books (Shutterfly) or post, because we all know these photos are going all over social media!!!

Note: I created this post/video on 4/15/18 and on 4/16/18 Carnival changed the prices of these packages with no warning which has upset MANY people! This is a review of my experience, which was positive! I think $249 for the package is a fair price. Would I pay $399 for the same thing? Probably not…

If you would like to see this info in video format… here you go:

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Thanks,

Alisa

EECC Travels