What to know about Disney Plus before signing up

Service costs $6.99 per month

Today is the day Disney lovers have been waiting for — the first day you can watch the company’s new streaming service, Disney Plus.

At first look on Amazon Fire TV, Disney Plus is very Netflix inspired. It’s the type of user interface we know and love with a big marquee carousel and title icons of shows and movies below.

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The first thing I wanted to see was a Disney Original short called “Forky Asks a Question: What is Money?” I immediately got an error message. I’m not sure why it wasn’t working two times, but it turned me off from wanting to watch it at that time. I did go back later and clicked on it, and it seemed to be working fine after that.

I think Disney could have gone even further with user experience in the way that Netflix does and could show a short preview of the content you want to watch, but the high-resolution images are good.

It looks like the Disney Plus service currently offers 12 new Disney Originals.

The Disney collection is absolutely massive and caters to many audiences, so there’s something for everyone. And the addition of the Disney Vault is a plus for those who love classic Disney movies, such as Cinderella, Bambi, Snow White, etc.

I was surprised by the documentaries. There are about nine to choose from Disney and National Geographic, such as the Disney Original “The World According to Jeff Goldblum.”

There are quite a few Disney short films to choose from, including some classic flicks.

The section for feel-good sports movies was completely grayed out and continued to show an error message when I tried to access it on launch day.

The left rail contains profile information, search bar, home button, watch list and buttons for originals, movies and series and a button for app settings.

Your watch list is where you can save things to watch when you want.

The originals button has all the new content Disney is releasing exclusively on its streaming platform. Some of these titles include “High School Musical The Series,” “Star Wars The Mandalorian” and the new “Lady and the Tramp” movie.

Throughout the app, I encountered more technical issues as I browsed through the originals library, specifically when I tried to watch “Star Wars The Mandalorian."

The movie tab had so many films from which to choose. I wish this had been released last month so I could have watched all the “Halloweentown” movies then. But there is so much to watch that one could spend a whole weekend on Disney Plus and not even make a dent in the massive library.

The content ranges from Disney Channel Original Movies to feature Pixar films to the movies from the “Star Wars” saga.

When I tried to get on the series tab, I got another error message that said there was an issue with connecting to the service. When I closed the app and went back, it was working.

The series section has choices from Disney Channel, Fox — which Disney recently acquired — National Geographic, Marvel and, of course, classic Disney.

The app settings button has your standard account, help, legal and log out buttons.

Overall, the enormous amount of content alone makes the $6.99 — or $69.99 a year — price tag a good deal.

While the app was buggy at times, I expect these issues were due to many users trying out the app at the same time on launch day. I expect the app will improve over time.

And now, it’s time to watch some Disney Plus!


About the Author:

Ivan Herrera has worked as a journalist in San Antonio since 2016. His work for KSAT 12 and KSAT.com includes covering breaking news of the day, as well as producing Q&As and content for the "South Texas Pride" and "KSAT Money" series.