Disney+, reviewed

Disney+ is the subscription that gets bought under duress on a wet Saturday and then, somehow, never cancelled. The catalogue is the reason: Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and the adult drama under the Star banner. It’s the one service where the kids and the parents are both getting something, which is a rare enough trick that Disney charges for it.

What you get

Three tiers, one library. Standard with Ads is two streams at 1080p with advert breaks. Standard is the same picture and streams without the adverts, plus downloads for the car and the plane. Premium is four streams in 4K UHD with HDR and Dolby Atmos, for the big telly. Apps are everywhere: Fire TV, Google TV, Apple TV, Samsung and LG, consoles and the web, so any stick on our list works.

For families the kids guide explains how it stacks up against the free options, and films and series covers the grown-up side.

There’s no free trial in Ireland. There is a bundle: Disney+ Standard with Ads comes inside Sky Ultimate TV at no extra cost, which for a house that’s getting Sky anyway makes this page unnecessary.

What it costs

Prices checked 2026-11-10 on the service's Irish pricing page.

Where the table shows an intro price, it ran for the first six months on the day we checked, and Standard and Premium can be paid annually at a discount to the monthly rate.

The catch

The intro. Six months at the saver rate, then the standard price kicks in and nobody sends a card. No free trial means you can’t kick the tyres for nothing. And the two lower tiers top out at 1080p, so if you bought the 4K telly for Marvel you’re on Premium.

The small print

When to have it, when to cancel

• New subscriber: take the six-month intro on whichever plan, and put the end date in the phone. That’s the cheapest six months you’ll get.
• Month seven: decide. If it’s staying, switch to annual billing for the discount. If it’s not, cancel; it rolls monthly, no penalty.
• Sky Ultimate household: don’t buy it at all. It’s in the package.
• School holidays: the obvious time to have it. A January cancellation and a June re-subscribe is a perfectly good plan, though the intro price is for new subscribers, so don’t count on it twice.

Verdict

Disney+ pays us nothing. For a house with children it’s the most useful paid library after Netflix, and often ahead of it. The Standard with Ads plan is fair, the intro is worth taking, and the annual plan is worth switching to if you’re honest about keeping it. Check the finder first, because if the sport pushes you toward Sky Ultimate, Disney+ comes free.