DisneyLife Review

Have you seen this unique digital membership service for DisneyLife app which allows you and your family to view Disney’s biggest collection of entertainment, including movies, books, music and TV episodes, in one place? Now you can enjoy Disney wherever you are, whenever you want as long as you have the suitable devices! It is available from the App Store and Google Play for a monthly price of £9.99, up to six members of the family can create their own individual profile on DisneyLife using their favourite iconic Disney character to use across 10 different devices. Visit www.DisneyLife.com to start your one month free trial and there is no annual contract so members may cancel at any time.

Setting up is pretty straightforward. You are required to register if you do not have a Disney account and registered your bank details. Once you log in, you are then required to download the app onto your device (either iOS or Android). Both my children have an iPad 2 and I was able to set it up very quickly with their profile using my iPad 4. This new service will also include built-in controls so that parents can set time limits on their children’s profiles for weekday and weekend use. I didn’t set it up as we have a different way of controlling their usage.

Logging in can be a nightmare. In our experience, it requires me to log in each time I open the app. This is quite annoying as I would prefer my children to operate it themselves than have to bring their iPad to me to log on. Also all our iPads have no autofill email and password via that app. I do hope in the near future, they will have a “Remember Me” option at the Log In page!

The app is very easy to navigate for all ages and it streams instantly or temporarily downloads an ever expanding digital library of hundreds of movies and books, as well as thousands of songs and TV episodes (through a UK internet connection). We all were unable to download any movies or music as we have limited storage for our Apple account. Hopefully in the near future, when I get the time, I might be able to clear space to download!

There are five features: Movies, TV Shows, Music, Book and Apps. Movies, books and kids TV series are available in up to five languages: English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.

Movies: It is home to more than 300 movies such as The Muppets, Mary Poppins, Alice in Wonderland and Enchanted; as well as Disney Pixar favourites including Toy Story and its two sequels, Wall-E, Monsters, Inc. and Cars. DisneyLife offers an unparalleled selection of Disney Classics – including The Lion King, The Jungle Book, Aladdin and Peter Pan. There will be new titles added, including the Academy Award®-winning hit movie Frozen, launching on the service in Spring 2016. In each movie, there will be special extras like deleted scenes and behind-the-scenes featurettes etc. Also you can select to have subtitles displayed.

We have been watching a couple of old classic Disney shows like Pinocchio and Dumbo which both of my children have not watched yet. My daughter is keen on any Disney Princess shows while my son prefer to watch live action movies like Pirates of the Caribbean, National Treasure, and Narnia etc. I love the wide selections of movies!

Music: This is a huge library with over 5,000 soundtracks to choose from, featuring some of the bestselling soundtracks from Frozen, Lady and the Tramp, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and High School Musical; as well as hit albums from Disney stars like Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, R5 and Hillary Duff. I like that you can play the music in the background while checking your email or running other apps on your device.

Kids’ TV Box sets: This is a place for you to catch-up on your favourite Disney Channels TV box sets, with over 2,000 episodes: from Sofia the First, the story of an adventurous princess in training; to Austin and Ally, the story of two friends who become a musical tour de force; and global hit Jessie. Both my children aren’t as interested in this at the moment, probably because they are not as familiar with the shows.

Books: Now you can enjoy listening to Disney’s magical storytelling with over 100 enchanting stories. It is available as audio and ebooks, there is a built-in read-along function for younger children, staged reading for kids of different ages, and reading adventures for more experienced readers. This is perfect for bedtime stories with mum and dad, the whole family can follow their favourite characters from Frozen, Winnie the Pooh, Monsters, Inc. and Cars on new adventures.

Apps: Every month, members get a free app to download from a curated selection of fun Disney apps via the App Store or Google Play. At launch, these include Cars 2 World Grand Prix Read and Race, an interactive story and thrilling race game through the streets of Tokyo, Japan and London with Lightning McQueen. Again, I am facing problems with my Apple storage which I have to sort out soon, otherwise I can’t download the Cars 2 app!

Overall, this is great for on the go, especially on days out/holidays as you are able to download shows to watch later without needing to be online. As for us, it is very useful as we don’t have any TV subscriptions like Sky, Netflix and others! We have relied on Blu Ray, DVD and digital films thus far! I do find that the £9.99 monthly price is a bit too steep but if you have a large family, then this will be good value for money!

Disclosure: We received the free code for the purposes of writing this review however all thoughts and opinions remain our own. Image used with permission.