Cost of downloading to CD from digital camera????

[georgia]

Hi , I will be going on my first cruise soon (to alaska), and would like to know how much Princess charges to download picturs from a digital camera to a CD...on board ship of course. I will be traveling on the Island Princess and do not know if I should buy extra memory cards or plan to download my pics every couple/few days onto CD.

Any info? any advice?????

[barbarah33]

I don't know what the charge is or if they can do it. They charge by the minute for the Internet but those computers are really only for Internet use. The photo shop may do it for you but you can be sure they will have a pretty penny of a price tag attached to it. My suggestion: bring your own laptop and do it yourself. (Of course the downside is that now you are lugging something else with you.) I constantly meet people on ships who bring their own just for that purpose.

[penny3333]

You can always bring extra memory sticks. I'll bet Walgreens or K-Mart would be half the price of the Photo Shop on board. We bring a 128MB, 64MB and the camera holds 8MB, plus a couple of rolls of good ol' 35mm. The photo gallery charges $10/per picture, I can only imagine what burning a cd would cost. Depending on the islands you're visiting, there may be a place on shore that could burn a cd as well. Enjoy your cruise!!

[georgia]

I do not have a laptop, and am new to a digital camera - just got my first one. The Island Princess does have a Photo Shop on board and can burn CD's. I do know that the Alaska ports have a place to burn CD's, but i am not sure how to do that and do not want to waste my Excursion/port time downloading to CD's

June 2006
Norhtbound Alaska on the Island PRincess

[DinghyCruzer]

Hi we were on the Sea Princess last December and I had the photo shop burn CD from my memory cards. They charged me $10 per CD which was not very much in my opinion because I am a shutter bug and I took over 2000 !! pixs.
There is one thing I would warn you about however. Make sure that they name the CD's something completely different each time because we ran into a problem with them duplicating CD's. They started off with our last name and then 1,2,3 etc. Sounds like it should have went soothly but different people burn the CD's and they were not careful to see which number they were working on. I ended up getting all of my pictures after I got home. I had to call Princess and tell them the problem so they could burn me the proper CD's.
I would name them by island next time. Hope this helps and I would do it again.

[Sonny V]

Hi, I have 5meg digital camera and use a 512meg memory card. I get 320 pictures on one card. They are $30 at Sam's club. I have 3 cards and an extra battery. Remember, you can delete any pictures you don't want to save with your camera. I would suggest buying an extra card/cards. This way you are set for picture taking on you next cruise. When you return from you cruise you can do your own editing and make you own CD.

[susanmaz]

This works if you know what you're doing. A friend bought a digital for her Alaskan cruise last year, and ended up deleting 400 pictures because she didn't know what to do. Sometimes it's worth the money to let someone who know what to do, do it. If you're comfortable with your equipment, bring everything with you and do it yourself. If you're not sure, or can admit you really don't know, it could be worth it to spend the money to have a CD burned right there.

[CRUISING PHOTOGRAPHER]

I own a camera store, so I hope this helps.
I was on the Grand Princess last summer and they do have a CD burner in their photo gallery. I don't remember exactly what they charged to convert the memory card to CD, but I'm sure it's less than $10.00 a disk. This is much more than walmart but still an inexpensive way to save your pictures and then re-use your cards, especially if you only need to do it a couple of times.

Memory card prices have fallen almost 50% since last summer, so you can now buy 1 gb cards for about $70.00. A couple of these would last most people their whole vacation, and you can still have them back it up to CD if you run short (unlikely for most people).

If you're a BIG shooter, buy a portable hard drive with card slots. I used one last summer and will use it again this summer. It is 40 Gigibites. They sell for $180. Every night I downloaded my cards, then erased them and shot again the next day on them. I then downloaded the portable hard drive to my computer when I got home. These are very small and eliminate the need for carrying lots of cards, or going up to the photo desk and making CD's. I shot over 3000 photos and still had pleanty of room left over.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me:
jim@pascocamera.com
Best wishes & happy shooting.
Jim

[DinghyCruzer]

Thanks for the advice about the portable hard drive this may be my answer!