I will proudly admit that I am a Disney nerd through and through. Growing up, Disney Channel was the one thing my siblings and I could always agree on watching. Whether it was throwing in a VHS tape (wow, how old do I sound!?) or popping on whatever show was currently playing on Disney Channel, it was something that brought my family together.
With this in mind, it’s obvious I was pretty ecstatic when I heard Disney was creating their own streaming service. Don’t get me wrong, it was great when I could just open Netflix and watch one of the Disney movies they offered. But I always felt like the options were so limited. This, of course, led to hours of scouring through YouTube trying to find the Disney movies and tv shows of my childhood, in hopefully a halfway decent streaming quality, to watch.
When Disney Plus was released in November, me and what seemed like the rest of the world went crazy. The first day I had the streaming service, I must have re-watched the entire last season of Wizards of Waverly Place. And I wasn’t the only one. All of a sudden, I started seeing memes of my favorite shows that I’d watch after a hard day at elementary school and I felt like I was transported back to 2009.
For about a month, it felt like everyone was reliving the best days of their childhood by watching all of their old favorite shows. Not only that, but the streaming service reminded me and everyone I know of all our favorite Disney Channel original movies that we had completely forgotten about. It even introduced me to some new shows, like The Mandalorian, and allowed me to catch up by watching things I had always wanted to see but never got around to, like The Avengers (I know I’m so behind on this, but I got around to it eventually).
Now that the streaming service is coming up on three months since its initial release, it’s starting to lose some of the hype. When I want to mindlessly watch something on my phone, I no longer immediately jump to the app. And as I debated whether to watch Netflix or Disney Plus the other day, I started to wonder: is Disney Plus worth it?
Sure, it was absolutely great at first; as I said, I watched nothing else for like a month straight. (And yes, this does include during finals week when I watched an average of four movies a day, sorry mom and dad…) But now that it’s no longer the newest thing and you don’t feel obligated to have it just to be “in the loop,” should a person really pay $6.99 a month for it?
Well, let’s look at the facts. If you have an account with the streaming service, you have access to all things Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and even National Geographic. Plus, you can always get the bundled pack which although changes the cost to $12.99/a month, includes all of those as well as Hulu and ESPN. These prices make the streaming service pretty comparable to Hulu which is $5.99/a month if you choose the plan with ads and Netflix which costs $8.99/a month.
Due to the logistical similarities, what is the reason someone would choose Disney Plus over Netflix or Hulu? It’s because Disney Plus is a niche service. It allows people to watch all their old favorite movies and tv shows from when they were young that can’t be seen anywhere else. And I do mean anywhere else; Disney has quite the monopoly and does a good job making sure no one else has access to their content. Plus, the company is continuing to produce new series for the platform, including Lizzie McGuire and a second season of The Mandalorian, so there should always be something new to watch.
Thus, the question of whether or not the streaming service is worth it comes entirely down to preference. If you peaked at the age of eight years old and want to relive those glory days by re-watching your favorite shows at that time, Disney Plus is totally worth it. However, if you’re more into true crime documentaries or reality tv than re-watching those classics, you could probably skip out on the $6.99/a month.
So, when it came down to it and I asked myself if I could really get rid of Disney Plus after experiencing all it had to offer, the answer was clear. Not a chance.