Disney movies and TV shows are available on many different streaming services. So is there a place for DisneyLife, their very own streaming service?
So, you decide it’s time to finally show your kid Sleeping Beauty. You then search your subscription streaming services, which all have Disney sections, and it’s nowhere to be found. What to do? Enter, DisneyLife.
If there’s one brand that dominates childhood, it continues to be Disney. As well as films, they also have TV shows, books, music, and now apps. All of that comes together in DisneyLife.
For £9.99 a month, the (UK only) app not only allows you to stream their films and TV content, you can also stream soundtracks, as well as access interactive books. Limited content can also be stored on your tablet/smartphone. You can download one free Disney app per month as well.
The big draw for me was the access to movies. While some are available on the other streaming services we have, it’s not complete and subject to the whims of whatever deals are made. Here, you get (as far as I can tell) all classic Disney (including our sought after Sleeping Beauty) and Pixar movies.
I admit, without doing my research, I just assumed I would be able to download the app to my PS3 or Apple TV and stream content to our TV that way. However, the app is only for compatible Apple and Android tablets and smartphones.
So I downloaded the app to iPhone and iPad – and it turns out I could stream content to our TV via the Apple TV. It was a bit more fiddly than I would have liked, but ok.
Settling down to watch a movie, you get a decent quality HD stream. Playback was mostly ok. It didn’t buffer into a low quality feed like others do, however it was a little buggy – we grew to expect a handful of picture freezes during a movie (sound always continued).
While this was annoying, I’ll be honest and say that this could be down to the ageing iOS devices we have. I own an iPhone 4S and iPad 2, which are older than our 4 1/2 year-old daughter.
Tablet screen time with my daughter is pretty limited, but this had so much content that she was (a little to easily) immersed in this. There are simple age restrictions if desired, so that was no problem.
Content can be navigated via various sections, such as categories, characters, or brand. Disney Classic and Pixar were well populated. Marvel had lots of books and cartoons, such as 3 seasons of Ultimate Spider-Man.
Star Wars Rebels only has the first series of the show but plenty of other media such as BTS videos and best of all the Early Reader books. There was a Disney Princess section that was full of everything I dislike about Disney.
I think these kind of apps come into their own when travelling. I know from experience how much of a lifesaver these can be during long haul travel, when coping with endless flights and jetlag. The ability to store content to the device, when access to wifi can be limited and/or expensive, is a great option to have.
Is it worth £9.99 a month? Well, that will depend on how much Disney you have – or want – in your family life.
For me, I was glad to be able to show my daughter the likes of Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella during the free trial – without us having to own them, as I hope I never have to see them again.
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Disclosure: We were given a 6 month subscription to the service for the purposes of this review.
DisneyLife © Disney. All rights reserved.
Whilst it all sounds very good I prefer to have the physical DVDs