I’ve Been to Disney World More Than 25 Times. And as a Plus-Sized Person, I Think I’m Done.

I’ve never been a particularly small person. I’ve been medically overweight since I was a child and have spent much of my life being bullied for it.

School was something I dreaded. I frequently would wake up and immediately beg my mom not to make me go. She’d occasionally indulge me and let me play hooky. Those days when I was away from school were some of the happiest days of my childhood memories.

But home wasn’t where I truly wanted to be. From the time I was three, Walt Disney World became my happy place, my safe haven, the only place where I felt how I looked didn’t matter.

No one made me feel bad for eating a Dole Whip or laughed at me and my little bowling-ball-shaped belly when I posed for pictures with Mickey Mouse. I didn’t think about my body as I soared through the streets of Hollywood with Aerosmith or plummeted to my doom with Rod Serling’s voice in my ear.

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But I spent many more days with bullies than with Mickey and his pals. Eventually, the bullying became too much. I started restricting my food intake. I was losing weight until that stopped working.

In frustration, I began to binge. Purging followed next, and I spent much of my adolescence fighting bulimia. The bullying stopped. In fact, I was constantly congratulated on how great I looked, even as I was regularly starving myself and doing irreparable damage to my body.

My “thin years” were short-lived. After losing my uncle and godfather unexpectedly at 53 to a heart attack, I wanted to do my best and try to give myself a happier, healthier life.

I struggled for years with quelling my desire to harm my body by denying it any nourishment. Ultimately, I began eating again. I put on weight. And the bullies returned.

Then, during the COVID-19 pandemic, I gained a significant amount of weight as a side effect of a medication I began taking for bipolar disorder, something I’d struggled with my whole life. My family and friends and the occasional stranger told me they were concerned.

But people don’t care about the why when you’re plus-sized. They just see you as an inconvenience. And nowhere have I found that to be more apparent than traveling.

Though I’ve never needed a seatbelt extender and do my best to shrink myself into a tiny ball every time I get on a plane, it’s still not uncommon to get glares when I board. None of my body ever goes into my neighbor’s seat, but me just being there and being fat often warrants animosity.

As my weight has changed, the facade of my safe haven has also cracked. Last year, I returned to Walt Disney World for the first time since the pandemic. I found myself scouring message boards and Facebook groups, hoping for information on whether or not I’d still fit on my favorite rides.

I began to notice a trend. Want to go on Space Mountain while plus-sized? You’ll probably be fine.

How about Pirates of the Caribbean? Oh, you’ll definitely be okay. From the style of seats to the lap bars (or lack thereof), both rides aren’t too restrictive for plus-sized travelers. The same goes for a number of older rides, like the Haunted Mansion or the Mad Tea Party.

But it was incredibly common to see people talk about cast members escorting them off Flight of Passage as they did what they referred to as the “walk of safety.” But the term was meant to be a kinder way to say what it really was: a walk of shame.

When Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind opened, the same story happened. People were turned away. They’d gone through the ride’s several preshows before making their way to the boarding area, only to discover that their stomach often prevented them from riding.

A shameful feeling followed me everywhere I went when I arrived at Walt Disney World. I never had to do the “walk of safety” on any ride in the parks. But my experience on Flight of Passage convinced me that I may never go on it again.

As I waited in the queue, a panic attack arose, the shame welling up inside me and overflowing. I stayed silent as I tried to disassociate.

My friends talked excitedly around me. I tried not to show that it was getting harder to breathe and that my heart was racing. All I could imagine was that I was about to face the walk of shame.

If you’re a plus-sized person, here’s what you need to know about Flight of Passage—and Walt Disney World rides in general. Technically, there are no weight restrictions for any ride at Walt Disney World. But that doesn’t mean that every person will fit.

For rides that create the biggest challenges for plus-sized people, it’s often not the number on the scale that’s the problem. It’s where you carry your weight.

People with larger stomachs tend to have problems on Cosmic Rewind, but for Flight of Passage, the issues arise if you carry more weight in your chest or lower body, particularly your calves.

As I made it through the preshow, my anxiety rose even further. And then it was time to board. The brace behind me pushed my chest forward and clicked right in. Then, the brace behind my calves pushed in. And pushed. And pushed. No click.

Related: Warning Issued for Disney Attraction, Multiple Guests Continually Rejected

I panicked and shoved my legs forward as far as they would go. It was excruciating as I struggled to make it click, begging it to please, please, just work. Please, please don’t make me do the walk of safety. Not in front of my friends and all these strangers who are just waiting for the ride to start.

It clicked, and relief flooded over me. I don’t even remember the ride. I just wanted to cry from relief and perhaps a bit from the pain of the brace digging into my leg. And just as soon as it started, it was over. People began filing out of the ride. My friends hopped off their bikes. But I couldn’t. The calf brace was stuck.

My friends stared at me, asking me why I couldn’t move, as the next group of riders began piling in. The attendant told us it was time to go. I was near tears as I explained that I couldn’t move.

Just as the other group began loading onto their bikes, the brace finally unlocked. I bolted from the room, humiliated.

Flight of Passage opened in 2017, and Cosmic Rewind in 2022. It’s one thing to expect older rides to have size limitations. Americans, in general, have become significantly bigger over the decades, so it might make sense for someone who is considered plus-sized today not to fit into a ride that was created back in the 1970s. But that’s not what’s happening.

When TRON Lightcycle / Run arrived, plus-sized people were at least catered to, although they were othered. The traditional bike-style seats are not plus-sized-friendly, but Walt Disney World promised that every train would be outfitted with accessible seating. The wait times for these bucket-style seats are often much longer than the traditional seating due to limited availability.

As America gets bigger, Walt Disney World seems to be going in the opposite direction. Rather than building more plus-sized-friendly rides, the parks seem more focused on creating what it calls “accessible options” that actually alienate a large portion of their audience.

As a plus-sized woman, traveling is hard enough without the fear of your destination being as othering of an experience as being the fat woman on a plane. What was once my happy place has become yet another place where fear and shame run rampant. For a destination that claims to be for everyone, they’re leaving a lot of people behind.