First Impression: Disney Play App

Disney lovers, now you have one more reason to love visiting the Disney Parks. The Disney Play app brings a new, fun experience to your visit and keeps the kiddos busy while you are in long lines or taking a break. 

I've been personally waiting for this for quite some time now, and had pre-ordered it in the app store so that it would automatically download to my phone once available. I believe it was originally supposed to be released on June 30th, but was released a few days early. I was actually pretty surprised to see it on my phone screen when I woke up the other morning. Our trip isn't until October of next year, but I did have a chance to play around with it from home just to see what it was all about and so this is my first impression of it for you guys. 

When you log into the app, naturally, you are going to want to turn bluetooth, location, and probably notifications on to get the full experience. I have mine set to only do these things when the app is opened. 

The first screen asks you to log into an account. This is so that you can keep track of your achievements. The Mickey in the upper left hand corner will show you your player profile. I obviously haven't set up my profile yet so mine is completely blank. The next screen lets you choose which location you are playing in and once you choose that, you can then choose which park you are currently visiting. The illustrations are really cute. Each location will give you a park map where you can see all the Disney Play locations. 

There are a small number of things you can do with the Disney Play app while in the parks and believe it or not, a few things you don't even need to be in the parks to play with. I was able to do a few of the activities from my home in Pennsylvania! So you can get your Disney Parks fix even while at home! 

The areas indicated by the larger circles that are directly at the attractions are the games. There aren't many, and obviously I am unable to play the games unless I am in the parks, but my example here is the Peter Pan's Flight. As you can see, you can play while you are in line. All it takes is one device and 2-5 players. The unlock the experience, you will need to be in the queue for this. 

The second experience available to you is indicated by a star on the map. These are places for you to get attraction achievements. All you need to do for these is go through the attraction and your achievement should pop up once the ride is done. This is a fun little way to "check off" attractions and a way to "collect" a digital badge for doing so. Think of it like an xbox achievement sort of. It will give you full instructions on how to get the achievement when you open it up. There are a lot of these, so you have plenty to do! 

Third thing on the map, and one of the two things that you can use when you are not in the parks, is indicated by a musical note. These are locations in the park where you can listen to a park playlist and this is really awesome for those of you missing "home" as they play music that you will frequently hear through out different areas of the parks and in different attractions. I really love this. 

Finally, as indicated by a question mark on the map, are Disney Parks (and movie) trivia! I am a sucker for trivia in general, but of course I am going to love Disney trivia. Ignore the fact that my two examples have nothing to do with one another, it's just how I took screenshots, but they will give you a multiple choice question and once you answer it, for some of the questions, they will give little facts to go with the questions. This is also the second one of the activities that you do not have to be in the parks to play. 

Overall, my first impression of the app is that it looks like it'll be a fun little addition to your vacation and a little something you can play around with when you are missing home. I think that there could be more attraction games, but maybe they will add more in the future.