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Holly Everman: EnchantAway Travel, South Bend, IN (2026)

08/22/2026

For the last few weeks, I have been making claims. The internet is wrong about Guardians. It is wrong about Slinky Dog. It is wrong about what a size-26 body can actually ride at Walt Disney World, and it is wrong in a way that has kept people I care about off rides they would have loved. I have said all of it plainly, in the open.
Now I am going to prove it.

In September I am going to Walt Disney World, and I am filming every single claim in this series. The Guardians squeeze that the beware lists swear is impossible. The Flight of Passage test seat, result and all. The separate vehicles ask working live at Haunted Mansion. The step-downs at Space Mountain and the Muppets coaster. Every claim, in the actual seat, with the actual outcome.

And here is my promise to you, which is the whole reason this works: if any of it turns out to be wrong, I will say so. Out loud, on camera, no editing it out. This is not a highlight reel where I only keep the flattering takes. It is a receipt. The entire point is that I called every one of these in advance, so when you watch it happen in September, you already know it was true before I ever set foot in the park. Anyone can film a good day at Disney. Proof is when you told everyone what would happen first.

So follow along, because Act Two starts the second I walk through the gate, and you are going to watch me cash every check I have written over these last few weeks.

💛 And comment PROOF for the free Plus-Size Disney Comfort Checklist, everything I am about to put to the test, in your hands before I even leave. When you are ready to plan your own trip, my planning is free to you. Message me anytime. 🏰

08/18/2026

Ten days of Halloween party content, and now let me put the whole thing together. This is the night, hour by hour, exactly how I would run it, and this is the post to screenshot. 🎃

Four in the afternoon: you walk in on your party ticket, three full hours before the party officially starts, and you ride your biggest priorities immediately while the regular day crowd heads for the exit. This is the block most people skip entirely and then regret, because it is the easiest riding of the whole evening. Do not be like most people.

At seven in the evening, the party begins. Go straight to your one must-meet character before the lines build, and I do mean one, because trying to collect them all is the fastest way to turn a lovely night into a forced march. Or, if characters are not your priority, start a candy loop from the back of the park, where the stations are quiet, and nobody has thought to go yet. Either way: space it out. You have hours. Nobody is timing you.

Then comes the block that makes the entire evening work, and it is the single best piece of strategy I know for this party.

When the first parade starts, essentially everyone in the park goes and stands on a curb to watch it. That is precisely when you go ride the headliner attractions, at or near walk-on. Then catch the fireworks. And then watch the second parade later in the night, when it is half as crowded, and the sightlines are genuinely better, same parade, same Headless Horseman, a fraction of the elbows.

That sequence is how you get the parade, the fireworks, and the rides, all in one night. Most people assume they have to choose between them. You do not have to.
And then, after the fireworks, comes the best hour of the entire night, and it is criminally underrated. Rides go walk-on. Character lines collapse. Candy stations restock. A significant portion of the park has already gone to bed. Everything you struggled to fit in earlier is suddenly, effortlessly easy, which is exactly why you should save your longest expected wait for right here rather than burning your energy on it at eight o'clock.

Now, the part that matters most to me, and the reason I write these guides at all.
This night runs until midnight, on top of a day you have probably already spent walking several miles. That is a lot to ask of anybody. So please, genuinely, pace it.
Sit down before you need to, not after. Treat the air-conditioned, seated show as a real activity rather than a failure; it is candy and comedy and a break, all at once, and it will buy you the back half of your night. If riding two-across feels tight, simply ask whether your party can ride in separate vehicles; they say yes constantly, and it is a completely ordinary Tuesday to them. The enormity of asking lives in your head, not theirs.

And do fewer things, fully. A night you actually enjoy will beat a perfect night that wrecks you, every single time, and nobody is handing out a medal at the exit for the most exhausted guest.

You belong at this party. Exactly as you are, in the body you have tonight. 💛
And if you would rather just hand this whole thing to someone, that is me, and it costs you nothing. Comment SPOOKY for the free Not-So-Scary Survival Guide, or comment MAGIC and let us plan the entire trip together. Disney pays me, not you. 🎃

08/17/2026

🍽️ Ask for the Chair.
Here is a correction that will get you a dinner the internet talked you out of. For years, the plus-size Disney advice about Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater has been the same: "It is all booths, skip it." That advice is wrong, and it has cost a lot of people a genuinely delightful evening.

Here is the reality. Most of the seating at Sci-Fi is those iconic drive-in cars, and yes, those are fixed booths; they are snug, and they are honestly tricky for a lot of bodies. But there are chairs at the back. Ordinary, movable chairs at regular tables. You simply have to ask for them at the podium when you check in: "Could we have table seating rather than a car, please?" That is the entire request. The trouble is that nobody tells you the chairs exist, so an entire category of guests writes the place off sight unseen.

And this is really the dining version of my whole framework. At a table, you ask the same two questions you ask at a ride: will the seat fit me, and can I get into and out of it comfortably? A booth bolted to the floor with a fixed table is, functionally, a vehicle-access problem at dinner; the seat might be fine, but you cannot get into it. A movable chair solves it in one sentence. So the fix is not specific to Sci-Fi. It is a habit: ask for the chair, everywhere.

When you book, or at check-in, request a chair rather than a booth, and ask for a table you can pull out from rather than slide into. These are completely ordinary requests that restaurants field all day long, at Disney and everywhere else. You are not being difficult, or high-maintenance, or a problem. You are being a person who intends to enjoy their dinner sitting comfortably, which is, when you say it out loud, an extremely reasonable thing to intend.

💛 Comment PROOF for my free Plus-Size Disney Comfort Checklist, which includes my dining comfort notes — which restaurants have chairs available, which ones to ask about, and where the roomy tables tend to hide. And when you want your whole dining plan built around comfortable seating, my planning is free to you.🏰

08/15/2026

🧥 What I Actually Wear
Nobody has this conversation, honestly, so I am going to. Here is what a plus-size body genuinely needs to wear for a fourteen-hour park day in Florida humidity, not the aspirational version, the version that gets you to the fireworks still comfortable.

Start at the base layer: bike shorts, under everything. If your thighs touch, and hello, mine do, then fourteen hours of walking in Florida heat is a chafing situation, full stop, and it will end your day hours early if you ignore it. A good pair of long bike shorts under your dress or skirt is the single highest-value item you will pack, and it costs almost nothing. It is not glamorous. It is completely essential, and it is the difference between a great evening and limping back to the bus at three in the afternoon.

Then the kit. Anti-chafe balm, applied in the morning, and this is the step people miss, reapplied after you dry off from any water ride, because water strips the protective layer right off, leaving you walking on unprotected, freshly softened skin. A real poncho, with some structure, not the flimsy free bag, because keeping your core dry is what determines whether the rest of your day is comfortable. And breathable fabrics that move with you; anything that clings when it is damp is working against you.

And your shoes carry more weight than anyone admits, literally. Broken-in, genuinely supportive, and if you can manage it, a second pair in the bag, because swapping shoes at midday resets your whole body in a way that has to be felt to be believed. The parks are measured in miles, not steps. Dress for the miles. Although, and I want to be clear about this, you can absolutely dress for the miles and still look wonderful. It is not one or the other. Do both.

Here is what I need you to take from all of it: none of this is about hiding your body or apologizing for it. It is about protecting it, so that hour fourteen feels like hour four and you are still in the parade, still on the water ride, still in the photo. Comfort is not the consolation prize you accept instead of a good time. Comfort is the strategy that makes a good time possible.

💛 Comment PROOF for my free Plus-Size Disney Comfort Checklist, my complete park-bag and outfit kit, exactly what to pack and where to put it. In September, I am wearing every bit of this and reporting back honestly. And when you want the whole trip built around your comfort, my planning is free to you. 🏰

08/14/2026

I want to talk about the ticket nobody in your feed is covering, because for a decent chunk of you it is genuinely the better option. 🌙

If everything I have said about the Halloween party over the last week sounds like a lot- the costumes, the crowds, the candy trails, the whole production of it- there is a completely different after-hours event, and it might suit you far better.

It is called Disney After Hours. Like the Halloween party, it is a separate ticket, and like the Halloween party, it takes place after the park has closed to regular guests. And that is where the similarity ends, because the personality could not be more different.

There is no parade. There are no costumes. There is no trick-or-treating. What there is instead: a strictly capped crowd, a list of headliner attractions open and running, and unlimited complimentary ice cream, popcorn, and bottled drinks all night long.
It is the introvert's version of a hard-ticket event, and I mean that as the highest compliment I know how to give.

So let me tell you honestly who this is for, because I would much rather you book the right ticket than the popular one.

This is your event if you have done the park many times already and what you genuinely want is to ride things repeatedly without a queue in your way. It is your event if you are traveling without children. It is your event if crowds and costumes drain you rather than energize you. And it is very much your event if your idea of a perfect Disney night is a nearly empty park, short waits, and as much ice cream as you can reasonably carry.

Now, the timing, because it matters a great deal this year. These events run at Hollywood Studios and at EPCOT, and Magic Kingdom's dates for the entire year are completely sold out. Gone. The remaining Studios and EPCOT nights run out in September, which means the window on this for the whole year is genuinely closing right now.

So here is the honest comparison, and I will not pretend one is universally better.
If you want atmosphere, entertainment, characters, seasonal magic, and a full event that feels like an occasion, the Halloween party, every single time. It is the richer experience, and it is the one people remember for years.
If you want to ride things with nobody in your way, eat ice cream in a quiet park, and go home unbothered, After Hours. Different product, different person, equally valid.

Comment SPOOKY and tell me which one sounds more like your kind of night, and I will tell you honestly which to book. Sometimes the answer is neither, and I will tell you that, too.

Planning with me is always free, because Disney pays me, not you. 🎃

08/13/2026

🪑 The Test Seat, Without the Dread
Every plus-size Disney guide on the internet says the same four words, "just use the test seat", and then moves on, as if the hard part were knowing test seats exist, rather than standing in a crowded park, in the sun, in front of a few hundred strangers, and lowering yourself into a chair whose whole job is to tell you whether your body is going to be a problem today. Let us actually talk about it.

The reframe first, because it changes everything. A test seat is not a public examination. It is not a verdict. It is a tool, and its entire purpose is to hand you information in about ten seconds so you do not spend forty-five minutes in a standby line only to find out the hard way at the loading platform in front of your family. Framed correctly, the test seat is not the humiliating part of the process; it is the thing that protects you from it. It is on your side. It always was.

Now, the word-for-word script, because when we are anxious, improvising is the first thing to go. Walk up to the cast member at the attraction entrance, not the person at the front of the line, the one greeting guests at the entrance. Say: "Hi! Can you point me to the test seat?" That is the entire sentence. There is no follow-up to prepare, no explanation you owe anyone. They will point you toward it, often walk you there themselves, and they will not make a face or an announcement, because they answer this question constantly. Then you sit, pull the restraint down, see what happens, stand up, and walk away. Ten seconds. Done.

And the tip I am proudest of: to check a test seat with essentially nobody around, go during rope drop, a parade, or the nighttime fireworks. In those windows, the test-seat areas are genuinely deserted. If the crowd is the part you dread, and for most people, it is, this solves it completely.

The honest part, because I will not sell you a version where everything is perfect: TRON’s test seat sits in a fairly exposed, public spot. I do not love it, and I will not pretend otherwise. So go at rope drop, or send a travel partner to look first, or skip the test seat entirely and request the standard lap-bar seat. You may wait a little longer, but you can ride without ever touching it. You get to protect your own peace, always. And one last thing: the cast members at these attractions have seen every body that exists, every single day. What feels enormous and exposing to you is, for them, an ordinary Tuesday. The size of this moment lives almost entirely in your head. I know, because it lived in mine.

💛 Comment PROOF for my free Plus-Size Disney Comfort Checklist — including every test seat location at Walt Disney World, so you know exactly where you are headed before you leave your resort. In September, I am filming the walk-up myself. And if you want someone in your corner for the whole trip, my planning is free to you: Disney pays me, not you. 🏰

08/12/2026

Everyone buys this ticket for the candy and the parade. And they should, both are wonderful. But almost nobody realises that Mickey's Not-So-Scary is also one of the best low-wait windows Disney offers all year, and that is genuinely free value sitting there unclaimed. 🎢

Let me explain why the waits collapse, because once you understand the mechanism you can exploit it deliberately instead of stumbling into it.
Two things stack together. First, the party operates on a capped guest list; there are simply fewer people in Magic Kingdom than on a normal night, and you can feel the difference immediately. Second, and more importantly, at any given moment during the evening, a substantial portion of those guests are standing at a parade route or watching the fireworks.

Which means the queues empty out. Repeatedly. All night. On a schedule you can actually predict and plan around.

Now, the question I get every time: what about Lightning Lane? The honest answer is that it is not available during party hours. I know that sounds like a downside, and for about ninety seconds it is. But genuinely, you will not miss it. The waits get so short in the back half of the night that paying to skip them would be faintly embarrassing. The park is handing you the skip for free; you just have to be there for it.
There is also a fun bonus that people forget about: a handful of attractions get seasonal makeovers exclusively for the party. Space Mountain runs a pitch-black deep-space version that honestly feels like a different ride, and the teacups get the treatment as well. They are small changes in the scheme of things, but they only happen on party nights, and they make familiar attractions feel brand new, which is a hard trick to pull off for anyone who has been to Magic Kingdom before.
So here is the rule for the entire night, and it is the throughline of everything I have said in this whole series: everything gets easier the later it gets.

Ride during the parades. Ride during the fireworks. And save whatever attraction you expect to have the longest wait for the final hour of the party, when a significant portion of the park has already gone to bed. I have watched families walk onto rides at eleven thirty at night that carried enormous lines that same afternoon.

That is not a hack. That is just knowing how the night is shaped.
Comment "SPOOKY," and I will send you my free Not-So-Scary Survival Guide, which lays out the full hour-by-hour ride strategy, along with everything else. Planning with me is always free, because Disney pays me, not you. 🎃

08/11/2026

🎟️ Fitting Alone Isn’t Fitting Together.
Here is something I took years to figure out on my own and have never once seen in a Disney guide. You can fit on a ride. Your partner can fit on a ride. Both of you, side by side, on the same bench, is a completely different question, and nobody is asking it.
Let me make it concrete, because specifics are what make this believable. My husband is six feet three and a bigger guy. I am a size 26. We each fit on Haunted Mansion perfectly comfortably on our own. Put us together in one Doom buggy, and we are absolutely smashed against each other for the entire ride, shoulders jammed, no room to breathe, both of us tense instead of enjoying a thing we genuinely love. We fit. We simply did not fit together. And for years, we just endured it, because it never occurred to either of us that there was another option.

There is. Ask a cast member if you can ride in separate vehicles. That is the entire solution. "Hi, for our comfort, could we ride in separate vehicles?" And they say yes. I do this all the time now, and it has completely changed how much I enjoy these rides. Instead of two people crushed into one bench, we each get our own space, relax, and actually experience the ride. I ask for it at Haunted Mansion, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, Buzz Lightyear, Spaceship Earth, Under the Sea, basically anything with a two-person bench where two larger people would be crammed together.

Now, the honest part: I know the fear is not really about the ride; it is about asking and the face you imagine the cast member making. So here is exactly what happens, from someone who has asked a great many times. In all those requests, I have met maybe one or two cast members who looked mildly confused. One or two, out of dozens and dozens. The overwhelming majority say "absolutely, no problem," often just quietly rearranging the loading order without any fuss at all. Because they see this constantly. It is not a strange request. It is a Tuesday.

What I need you to hear is this: you do not have to spend an entire ride squashed, tense, and miserable simply because you did not want to ask a question. You are allowed to want room. You are allowed to actually enjoy the ride you just queued for forty minutes. Telling a cast member that separate vehicles would be more comfortable is not a special favor or an imposition. It is just asking.

💛 Comment PROOF for my free Plus-Size Disney Comfort Checklist, including every ride where I request separate vehicles. In September, I am filming this ask while working live at Haunted Mansion. And when you are ready to plan, my planning is free to you: Disney pays me, not you. 🏰

08/10/2026

Mickey's Not-So-Scary is one of the only times adults are allowed to wear a full costume into a Disney park, and people go gloriously all out for it. It is one of my favorite things about the whole event. 🧙

But there are real rules, and every single year people get turned away or asked to change at the gate, which is a genuinely heartbreaking way to start an expensive night. So let us make sure that is not you.

Here are the rules, short version. Costumes must be family-friendly: nothing offensive, obstructive, or violent. No weapons or weapon look-alikes, and no sharp or pointed props; this catches a lot of people, so check your accessories. No masks that cover the face for anyone fourteen or older, and headwear cannot obscure the face either. Nothing dragging on the ground, which means full-length gowns tend to get flagged. Capes are fine as long as they stay above the waist. And you can absolutely dress as a character, but you cannot pose for photos or sign autographs for other guests, which is a rule that exists for very sensible reasons.

Rules can shift slightly from year to year, so I always double-check the current guidelines before a client's party date. One more thing you do not have to track.
And now the talk that almost nobody gives you, and honestly the reason I wanted to write this post.

Central Florida during party season is not "warm." It is aggressive. Even the later-season evenings can roast you before sunset, and the early-season nights are genuinely serious about it. That full gown-and-wig moment is gorgeous right up until you are sweating through it before the party has even officially begun and you are miserable for the next five hours.

Heatstroke is not the aesthetic. So here is the fix: change into your costume later. There are lockers. Wear something breathable and easy through the hot part of the evening, then put the showstopper on when the air actually cools down. Same photos. Vastly better night.

And a few things I genuinely do myself. I am a size 26, my husband is six foot three, and I have field-tested every one of these personally rather than reading them somewhere.

Bike shorts under everything. Chafing will end a night on your feet faster than tired legs ever will, and a simple base layer just solves the problem entirely. Choose breathable fabrics over anything structured or heavily lined, because structure and Florida humidity are natural enemies. And genuinely consider a DisneyBound instead of a full costume, your own comfortable clothes, styled to read as a character. It is cooler, it is easier, it is still completely photo-worthy, and I promise nobody is checking your credentials at the gate.

You do not have to suffer to look the part. That is not a consolation prize; that is just better planning.

Comment SPOOKY, and I will send you my free Not-So-Scary Survival Guide, full costume rules, and my comfort kit included. Planning with me is always free, because Disney pays me, not you. 🎃

08/09/2026

⚖️ My Two Honest Nos.
I have spent this whole act telling you what the internet got wrong about plus-size Disney. Now I am going to tell you what it got right, because if I only ever say yes, you have no reason to believe me when I do. A guide that never names a limit is just cheerleading with a link at the bottom.

So here it is, plainly. There are exactly two rides at Walt Disney World that I, at a size 26, genuinely cannot ride.

TRON Lightcycle / Run — the bike. You ride it leaning forward on a lightcycle, and the restraint closes against your back and calves. It is posture and calves, not width, and it catches nearly everyone off guard. So the lightcycle is a no for me. But here is the part that matters enormously: TRON runs accessible ride vehicles on a couple of trains, with an ordinary pull-down lap bar, for guests with mobility needs and for bodies that do not fit the bike. So I still ride TRON. I just do not ride the bike. Ask a cast member, that is precisely what those vehicles exist for.

Avatar Flight of Passage, my one true no. The restraint drops onto your lower back and wraps your legs, and larger calves keep it from locking. That is the mechanism, and it is the one that stops me cold.

And now the reframe I need you to actually take with you: it is calf circumference, not dress size. There is a test seat right outside Flight of Passage, and you should absolutely use it, because shape matters far more than size here. I have watched people smaller than me get turned away, and people larger than me ride happily. A number on a clothing tag genuinely cannot predict this. Ten honest seconds in that test seat can. If it is a no for you too, then it is a no, and you go ride Na’vi River Journey instead, which is right there and one of the loveliest things Disney has ever built. You lose a ride. You do not lose the park.

Because look at the actual scale of it: two rides, out of dozens and dozens, and I ride one of them anyway in a different car. You have been building an entire theme park in your head out of two attractions. Let us put the rest of the park back where it belongs.

💛 Comment PROOF for my free Plus-Size Disney Comfort Checklist, every yes, every tight-but-yes, and these two honest nos, park by park. In September, I am filming that test seat, result, and all, because a no discovered with grace is more powerful than any yes. And when you are ready to plan, my planning is free to you: Disney pays me, not you. 🏰

Holly Everman: EnchantAway Travel

08/22/2026

08/18/2026

08/17/2026

08/15/2026

08/14/2026

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