I was not going to subscribe to Disney+, nope nope nope! Then COVID lockdown began at almost the same time as Disney+ went live in the UK, I was left with NO choice!
In fact I am almost amazed, some conspiracy theorist has not made the connection… but I won’t go there hey!
Now rather than allow myself to fall down the rabbit and binge watch everything Disney+ had to offer, I had to be sensible. I have work to do, home schooling to supervise, hungry mouths to feed.
But we love Disney so much I needed a plan. One that would allow me to indulge without losing days at a time.
Disney+ self isolation game
To utilise this new package, we needed to come up with a way to please everyone. Children aged 12, 9 and 6 all have very different tastes. So different that actually watching the same film together is pretty rare!
On our first weekend in self isolation I finally hit on a way to make it as fair as possible.
I told the children to select a Disney film, they were to write it down on a slip of paper and fold it up and throw it in to a cup. This included the adults too.
Now we have 5 secret films that we can access on Disney+ to watch throughout the week.
The rules
For this to work we had to have a few rules to follow.
The big one is that there is NO get outs. Everyone has to sit and watch the choosen film.
No moaning is allowed.
Phones and tablets are banned.
It’s a lucky dip so no complaining when your film is not picked first.
You can’t quit on the film.
No changing your choice.
And finally NO repeats.
Let the fun begin
So far we have played the game twice and it has been a huge hit! Here is what we’ve watched so far and who chose it.
F has chosen the Good dinosaur and Christopher Robin, both were well received and would have been otherwise overlooked by the girls who barely blinked through the first.
S chose Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast (The Hermoine one in her words) Both of these are firm favourites. Cinderella in particular looked really good on our new TV.
E chose the Little Mermaid and Frozen, both of these were completely expected by us all. There was almost a collective eye roll but I think F was the child most riveted by Frozen at least! Don’t tell his 12 year old mates though!
Rob opted for Bolt and Tron. The kids had not seen Bolt before so that went down well, Tron on the other hand was a little like pulling teeth (for me) and the kids have given him a bit of stick since! They must have forgotten the rules!
I decided on Ratoutille and Lady and the Tramp, the remake. I think the first prompted so many memories from Disneyland that we all loved it. The Jury is still out on Lady and the tramp but we all made it through.
So why bother?
For us it really has stopped all the arguments around film choices and actually encouraged us to all enjoy films together.
Plus we have all watched something that we may have avoided in the past, a Disney education if you like. It has fast become my favourite time of the day during self isolation.
And I really feel like we’ve all bonded over it. It has taught the children to take turns, to be a gracious winner or loser and taught them some lessons in chance. Where before if they felt a sibling was getting a choice over their’s all hell would break loose. Now we are all chill about it because we know it’s luck of the draw and we will all get a go.
Of course it means we get to work our way through Disney + during self isolation while still functioning and doing normal things!
Why not give it a go, fun for all the family. What would your first choice for the Disney + self isolation game?
What a great idea! We argue so much about who wants to watch what!
It can be a nightmare x x
We need this in our house between me and my partner. Not with Disney as we don’t have disney plus but Netflix. He’s ALWAYS moaning and changing his mind mid epsiode!
Oh man that would drive me insane!!
Hi Claire,
Such a cute idea! This would save a lot of scrolling and indecisiveness. Lol. I hate when it takes forever to pick a movie or show. My first pick would be Moana. We have already seen it a bunch of time but I love it. My husband would a Star Wars movie for sure. My kids have a different favorite every week so it would be interesting to see what they would pick. Thanks for sharing! 😊
Heather
Thank you Heather. It’s been really interesting to see how they choose the films, my sons really surprised me x
This sounds like the perfect way to please everyone with Disney+
There’s only me and Connor in our house so like proper adults we’ve started at the beginning chronologically and are watching everything – one film a day keeps the isolation madness away right?
It sure does!
Great idea. People are being so creative during isolation. Time for family I hope we keep a few of these “lessons learned”. When this is over.
Oh I sure will be, I feel bad but I’ve loved being in isolation x
Good idea! We don’t even have kids in our house, and I feel like my husband and I need this!
If you’re anything like my partner and I he always picks the films!
This is absolute genius!
Thank you x
That’s a really smart idea! I don’t have anyone to fight over what to watch, but that seems like a good way to prevent many arguments haha.
bossbabechroniclesblog.com
We need all the help we can get to stop arguements!
This is such a lovely idea! I love that Disney has something for everyone, no matter what their age, and that what you’re interested in watching changes as you age – the oldies because nostalgia and the new ones because they’re just so well done. Thanks for sharing this idea with us, I’m away to share it with my family and see if they’re up for it!
It’s been lovely to go through some old stuff. My girls are loving Hannah Montana, slowly we’ve all been sucked in x
I read this yesterday but only just got around to commenting. What a lovely idea! I can imagine it would have caused absolute chaos if you didn’t have some sort of system in place of what to watch, haha! Although I absolutely LOVED the new Lady and the Tramp! Thought it was SO cute! <3 Might give Tron a miss though, after what you've said haha! If you haven't watched The Imagineering Story yet, I'd highly recommend it!
That’s on my list to watch, there is so much choice it’s hard to know where to start x x
Seems like a fun game where everyone gets to see what they want to. On the other hand, it must be hard for a child to sit through a film they don’t like
They’ve all loved every choice. It’s amazing really x
We have subscribed to Disney+ as well, I have been loving rewatching all the old Disney classics
It’s so much fun x
Great way to pass the time
I love the fact ‘no moaning’ is one of the rules! 🙂
I am staying away, I would never get anything done if I signed up to Disney+!
I just know my kids too well! I could hear the ‘It’s not fair!’
I need to launch this in our house. Wether it’s Disney+ or Netflix there is always arguments and whining that one of them doesn’t agree. Such a great idea and will definitely give it a go.
Enjoy Eddie, we’ve not had a TV related row in weeks now!
What a lovely idea! I can’t get enough of Disney+ and it really did launch at the right time in the U.K.!
Lauren | https://www.laurenyloves.co.uk/
It was literally the best time for Disney and us!
Our grand kids and our great nieces have been enjoying Disney+ ever since they’ve been out of school during this crisis. I introduce my grandson to The Fox and the Hound, which was a movie his daddy liked when he was little. I’m watching our grands on weekends now, so this game will be great!
Enjoy it. I’ve not watched the fox and hound in a really long time x
This game is a great idea! We have Disney+ as well and have been playing it a lot however there is a lot of bickering when trying to choose what to watch.
Oh it can be a nightmare!
My parents used to do something similar to this with videos that we had in the house because there were 5 of us with such different preferences. It’s funny how you can actually end up enjoying someone else’s choice more than your own isn’t it? Haha. My partner and I have recently subscribed to it not long ago and we watched Emperors New Groove which is the first time I’ve actually seen it and I loved it!
I’ve not watched that yet, maybe I should give it a go x
We have a similar rules on our weekly (though more that the moment )film nights, we jumed at it on launch (wrote post about it) and have enjoyed it since, our youngest has probably watched it the most though the others have enjoyed it
It was a perfectly timed release for us all x
I really enjoyed reading your post and taking some of your tips into account as it made me realise that I am not the only one having the same issues with getting both my kids to watch the same show.
It can be a nightmare. Enjoy x
What a wonderful idea! I have a 3 year old, 6 and 9 so I can definitely understand the struggle of finding something that everyone wants to watch. This is fun and I think it’s neat to watch something that you may not have watched otherwise . Thanks for sharing this!
Thank you, hope you give it a try x
Sounds like fun! My kids love Toy Story, Aladdin, and the OG Beauty and the Beast right now. They know mommy can’t watch Little Mermaid or she’ll cry at the end. LOL
Haha I cry at most films!
That is a great idea. My kids are only a year apart, but we have a boy and girl. It’s always an argument on family movie night. We are going to start doing this.
It definitely makes it more fun for all x
This is such a cool idea. at times like this games and things to do in the house are key to keep kids busy xx
They really are x
What a great idea! It definitely sounds like it works well with your family and probably will with many. I guess everyone loves Disney regardless right?
Oh we sure do in this house x
I love this idea we have had quite a lot of bickering since we have got Disney+ but we are big Disney fans so we need to try this out.
It definitely stops the rows x
I think this is a brilliant idea. We’ve just subscribed to a free week of Now TV and there are indeed arguments over what we watch at lunchtime… I think we will follow your suggestion!
It actually makes TV watching a pleasure x
I love this idea! So much fun for the whole family. Thanks for the ideas!
Thank you x
It was perfect the first time. I learn so much from you as well! Keep it up great post.
That’s a really good idea, to take into account all the different tastes. We’re loving Disney+, we’re working through all the Marvel films at the moment
I’ve been trying to watch as many Disney movies that I hadn’t seen before and we’ve done wreck it ralph (both of them) and zootropolis lately. Both of which I loved x
What a great idea! The girls are loving having Disney+ because they can watch all the classics and the latest Pixar films and I can binge watch my favourite Simpsons episodes! Ours are 9 and 3 so it’s a slightly broader age gap but we might only have a few years left of the older one even liking these films so I might pursue this idea and see if we can make something work 🙂
This is a great idea! I might do this myself just with you know, just me… But it will be a way of deciding what to watch rather than spending an entire evening trying to decide and getting nothing watched, aha! Great idea and I love the positivity that’s come from it.