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Stream Jungle Cruise for 'free' on Disney Plus today. Here's how

Disney Plus Day is here, which means you won't have to pay for Premier Access to watch Jungle Cruise and several other movies.

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Katie Teague
Corinne Reichert
3 min read
jungle-cruise

Jungle Cruise is free on Disney Plus now.

Walt Disney Pictures

Jungle Cruise is back on Disney Plus, but this time, you don't have to pay for Premier Access to watch it. Today is Disney Plus Day, so all subscribers to the streaming service have free access to this movie, starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Emily Blunt, as well as many others.

We'll tell you how to stream Jungle Cruise on Disney Plus for free with a subscription, and what the movie's all about (spoiler-free, of course). If you don't have a subscription to the streaming service, you can get your first month for $2 right now.

How to watch Jungle Cruise for 'free' on Disney Plus

You can now start streaming Jungle Cruise on Disney Plus for free if you're subscribed to the service. Even after Disney Plus Day is over, Jungle Cruise and several other new movies -- including Disney's Shang-Chi and the Home Alone reboot -- will continue to be free as long as you have a subscription. Normally Disney Plus charges an additional $30 for Premier Access when a new movie is released, on top of its monthly subscription charge.

If you've already got a Disney Plus account, use the search bar to look up Jungle Cruise and then tap Play. You'll also likely see it promoted on the Home page. If you don't have a subscription, you'll need to choose from one of the below options -- you can cancel any time.

There are three basic ways to subscribe:

What's Jungle Cruise about, anyway?

The Jungle Cruise movie is based on the Disneyland ride of the same name. Johnson plays a boat skipper named Frank, who takes Blunt's character Lily and her brother McGregor on a mission to find a tree that has magical healing powers. (McGregor is played by British stand-up comedian Jack Whitehall, who you may recognize from the Good Omens series on Amazon Prime.)

The journey sees them fight wild animals and compete against a rival German expedition, with Disney adding that there is a "supernatural element."

A month before the movie's release, Disney launched two trailers: One from The Rock and one from Blunt, each making their own character the star of the movie. A trailer dropped in late May, showing off Jesse Plemons' submarine-captaining villain.

Who's in the Jungle Cruise cast?

The film's director is Jaume Collet-Serra, whose previous credits include The Shallows and The Commuter. The cast includes:

  • Dwayne Johnson as Frank
  • Emily Blunt as Lily Houghton
  • Jack Whitehall as McGregor Houghton
  • Jesse Plemons as Prince Joachim, the villain
  • Paul Giamatti as Nilo Nemolato
  • Edgar Ramírez as Aguirre
  • Raphael Alejandro as Zaqueu
  • Andy Nyman as Sir James Hobbs-Coddington
  • Simone Lockhart as Anna
  • Sulem Calderon as Quila
Disneyland Jungle Cruise

Disneyland's Jungle Cruise ride dates back to 1955.

Disney Parks

What is Disneyland's Jungle Cruise ride?

It's no surprise that Disney is going after another ride-based movie, after the success of its Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise. The Jungle Cruise is even older than the Pirates ride. It was the only attraction to exist in Adventureland on Disneyland's opening day in 1955.

The Jungle Cruise attraction features a boat ride through a man-made jungle, with each tour led by a skipper who follows a pun-filled script. The boat travels past crocodiles, piranhas, monkeys, elephants, rhinos, cannibals, hippos and the infamous Back Side of Water, the eighth wonder of the world.

As he prepared for the movie, Johnson said on Instagram, Disney's Imagineers let him see the original Jungle Cruise concept art from the 1950s, as well as gave him an "oral/visual history lesson behind the iconic ride and its infamous and relentlessly entertaining skippers."

The ride was overhauled at both Disneyland and Disney World to include new scenes and remove racially insensitive depictions. It reopened at Disneyland on July 16. The ride will also be among those whose history is explored in the Disney Plus documentary series Behind the Attraction.