Have you ever found yourself taking a look at our posts or our social media and going, “I can’t believe that’s their JOB!” Yeah, we have the same thought EVERY day!

It’s no secret that our job is pretty epic. We get to write about and/or explore Disney and theme parks pretty much every day. It doesn’t get better than that! However, some parts of our job probably confuse a lot of people. If you’ve had questions before and haven’t known how to ask them, this post is for YOU, because it’s full of behind-the-scenes tidbits. Yes, we’re telling you ALL about what the day of a DisneyFoodBlog reporter actually looks like, and fair warning: it may surprise you!

The job actually starts with our editors. There’s new Disney news coming out basically every day, but Disney doesn’t announce each and every new snack there is, or when a singular new merchandise item is released, so we have park walks to search for what’s new and see if there’s anything that sticks out to us. Our editors also work as our main schedulers, so they’re in charge of deciding who goes on a park walk and when, including choosing which park (or parks, sometimes it’s multiple in one day!) we’ll be heading to.

Sometimes that decision is made by looking at what construction is currently happening in the park, since there’s a good chance things change week to week, or even day by day. Other times, we’ve gotten word that new snacks or new merchandise items may be dropping, so a reporter is sent into the park to check it out. There are some cases where park walks are changed in the middle of the day if breaking news comes out! Our editors also watch Disney’s socials and sites, as well as Google in general, really closely each day to see if there are any whispers about things we haven’t seen yet.

Once we’re in the park, we’ve got specific assignments we’ve been told to complete, and we head to knock those off our list! If there are ones at a higher priority than others, we’ll be told that, and we’ll head to those first. Otherwise, we’ll go in whatever order it makes the most sense. Usually, we try not to backtrack if we can help it! We also try to plan any meals or snacks around times we’ll actually be hungry, as much as we can. Though, there are plenty of days where our whole day is eating different snacks, which can be a lot harder than it seems! Disney snacks are delicious, but wow, they do get filling VERY quickly.

Then comes sending in what we’ve found to our team back home — those are our writers and editors! As we complete the tasks we’ve been assigned, or we find interesting stories around the park, we communicate with the work-from-home team to let them know what we’re seeing. This often also includes sending in photos and videos and uploading them so the team can see what we’re seeing — those are the photos you see in our posts, and the videos you see on our social media and YouTube! On hot days, we often have to wait for our phone to cool down, because if it overheats, it’s a no-go on sending anything. We usually try to find a spot inside to help us and our phones cool off.

You may be surprised to learn that being a DFB reporter also takes having a very specific set of items to make your life a LOT easier in the parks. Believe it or not, yes, our jobs are amazing, but they can also be REALLY hard, especially if you don’t have the right tools. You know how you find yourself in pain after wearing the wrong shoes on vacation, or you forget a portable charger and then find yourself scrambling? Yep, we’ve been there. All those product recommendations we give you are because we’ve experienced firsthand just how difficult the parks can be without them.

We’ll continue to be in the parks day after day to bring you all the latest news, so be sure to stay tuned to DFB!