Stop the Ride!

It’s March in Florida, and I’m walking around Hogsmeade village in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando. It’s a Christmas card come to life: a picturesque setting with charming storefronts, cobbled streets and faux snow-capped brick buildings with crooked chimneys. My friends and I want to see Hogwarts, so we head to the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride, a flying adventure through the castle.

We pass through the gates and eventually it becomes dark and atmospheric, with cold stone walls and stained-glass windows everywhere. Talking portraits speak to us as we move deeper into the castle, and Professor Dumbledore welcomes us to Hogwarts. “You may encounter all manner of things not common to your own world,” he warns.

As we approach the end of the line, Harry, Ron and Hermione appear and invite us to watch a Quidditch game. A rollercoaster–style car pulls up next to us. It looks like some kind of enchanted bench. Above us, countless candles float in the air as if they’re all under a spell.

“Huh,” I say to my friend. “I think this is the ride that made me feel sick last time.” We walk on to the moving platform and take our seats. I pull the ride restraint over my shoulders, and it clicks into place.

The bench abruptly moves sideways, and we’re lifted into the air, feet dangling. We’re swept up and to the side at the same time, which throws me off balance. Instant regret. My heart is beating hard, I’m accumulating spit in my mouth, and after a few seconds I’m already dizzy and nauseous. I’m hyperaware of my body as it shifts and sways at the mercy of a robotic arm that lurches me, tilts me, turns me. I hold on for dear life.

I’ve been told that the ride is about four minutes long. But it feels as if I’ve entered a portal to another dimension where time loops on and on. I suddenly remember the butterbeer I chugged right before the ride.

Whoops. I close my eyes; I know I’m going to be sick. I can’t escape it, but maybe I can delay it. I take deep but shaky breaths. I brace myself against the unpredictable movements. And then, I let it happen.

I surrender to the ride’s pre-programmed destiny. Its force is bigger and stronger than mine, and better engineered. I’m flung around like a rag doll. I curse Harry Potter and his friends, the ride designers, the thrill seekers who rave about the ride, and most of all, me, for willingly going on it. I open my eyes. I see Harry on screen, flying a broom through a Quidditch field. And then I throw up all over my lap. In my hands. And into the open air.

I love amusement parks. I love rides. Unfortunately, they make me barf. There was the time I emerged green and shaky-legged from The Simpsons ride, a motion simulator attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood, and another occasion when I nearly blacked out from the G-force on Dueling Dragons, a roller coaster that Universal Orlando retired in 2017.

It’s not just rides: I once spent six stomach-churning hours in the cabin of a rocking lobster fishing boat, and I often feel disoriented on an especially windy car ride. But I’ve always denied my propensity for motion sickness.

That is, until I found myself wandering Universal Orlando’s Islands of Adventure carrying a plastic bag stuffed with my puke-covered clothing and searching for a new pair of shorts. It was then, at age 27, having thrown up at multiple amusement parks in my life, that I realized motion sickness was something I’d have to live with. And that even though I’ve loved going on theme park rides since I was a kid, I’ve never been able to fully experience what they’re built to do: give me a freewheeling, exhilarating thrill.

Thrill seekers want an extreme adrenaline rush, but also an emotional journey. Theme parks are designed to deliver both. The fear and ultimate satisfaction we feel from thrill rides is similar to what we seek in a horror movie or a painfully spicy hot sauce. They’re all benign forms of masochism.

There’s an enduring interest in theme parks and their manufactured thrills. In 2019, over half a billion people visited theme parks worldwide. The global theme park industry, valued at just over $55 billion, is built on family fun, shared experiences, and escape.

“It’s about getting away from the everyday and disappearing into a different world,” says Sabrina Mittermeier, author of A Cultural History of the Disneyland Theme Parks. There’s no time to think about your silly little problems when your body is flying through the air against all odds. But what happens when a ride that’s meant to excite you or make you feel awe doesn’t strike that perfect balance of fun and fear? What does a shattered mirage look like?

Up to a third of people experience motion sickness. It’s the body’s re­sponse to different types of movements that cause disequilibrium: a sensation of unsteadiness, imbalance and spatial disorientation. Cue the nausea, dizziness, headaches, cold sweats, general unwellness and, well, barfing.

Anyone can get motion sickness. It’s been described as ‘a natural response to unnatural conditions’, and somehow, that makes me feel better. Children as young as two can experience it, and women are more susceptible than men, as are migraine sufferers and those with inner ear troubles. Heck, sheer anticipation may bring it on: People who have experienced it in the past may have worse symptoms, brought on by expecting to feel sick.

Motion sickness can be felt anywhere: land, sea, air and space. Charles Darwin was continually seasick on his nearly five-year journey on the HMS Beagle, writing in 1835, “I hate every wave of the ocean, with a fervour, which you, who have only seen the green waters of the shore, can never understand.” Angsty!

In recent decades, new technology that mimics vehicular travel—such as flight simulators, virtual reality (VR) headsets, video games and motion simulator rides—have joined the classic motion-sickness provokers: the car, the railcar, the airplane and the boat. You can’t escape it.

The cause of this condition is simple: motion. The reason why motion does this to us is not so simple. Sensory conflict theory says sickness is brought on by a mismatch between what the eye sees and the information the brain receives from the vestibular organ, located in the inner ear, which is responsible for balance. So when the eyes tell the brain that a person is sitting still on a boat, for example, but the vestibular system senses head movements from waves rocking against the ship, these mismatched messages are traditionally believed to cause disorientation, which can lead to motion sickness.

Thomas Stoffregen has a different take. A professor of kinesiology at the University of Minnesota, he maintains that the inner ear is not the culprit. Instead, he says, blame the brain. In an inconsistent environment—such as a rocking boat—the brain can’t influence the body’s movement as it usually can. The result is that you lose your equilibrium first, and then you get motion sickness. To understand, just picture poor me strapped to a seat and pushed through space.

“You’re trying to stabilize the head against these motions that you cannot predict and cannot control,” Stoffregen says. “That’s why you got sick in that device.”

While I got sick on a very modern Harry Potter ride thanks to the mismatched stimuli between screens and physical motion, ride-induced motion sickness is nothing new. In 1893, ride designer Amariah Lake invented an ‘illusion apparatus’ called the Haunted Swing. Victorian-era riders entered a room and took a seat on the swing. Attendants gave it a push, and, as one New Zealand newspaper described, “The swing seems to whirl completely over … while the occupants shriek convulsively and hug each other.”

The ride mechanics deceived riders enough for them to believe they were the ones moving violently. In reality, they were stationary; it was the room that rotated. People were amazed by the engineering and overwhelmed by the physical experience—sometimes enough to vomit. But the ultimate trick in designing theme park rides is to perfectly calibrate their ups and downs so people don’t end up sick.

If you ask me, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey missed the mark. On that day in March, the ride that did me in features a rollercoaster–style four-seat bench mounted on a robotic arm that drops, spins, twists and turns. The bench doesn’t go upside down, but at one point, riders are laid flat on their backs, and honestly, what’s the difference?

For me, there’s too much movement: The arm is attached to a track, which moves through a physical set with animated props. Dome-shaped projection screens fill the rider’s entire field of view. As a press release from Universal Orlando gloated, the ride, which debuted in 2010, blended the “first-ever combination of live-action advanced robotic technology and innovative filmmaking,” creating a new, immersive experience.

And hey, people really love it: There’s a cult-like following online, with fans calling it a revolutionary ride with insane state-of-the-art tech that refreshes the indoor ‘dark ride’ genre. But push the drama too intensely and a person may never come back again. Ride designers must walk that fine line between safety and danger, while balancing the physical stress on the body. The truth is that thrill rides are designed to induce some level of discomfort. But what’s too much? Throwing up? Whiplash? Blacking out from the G-force?

Past and present, some rides go too far. One of the world’s first looping roller coasters, the Flip Flap Railway at Coney Island’s Sea Lion Park, was infamous for knocking people out. It had a perfectly circular loop, which meant that passengers were nailed with serious G-force. In 1910, Rough Riders, another early Coney Island roller coaster, tossed 16 passengers out of the car, killing four.

Even if you don’t die, some rides are notorious for making you feel sick—even today. In 2022, the New York Post reported that Epcot employees were handing out barf bags at the new Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind ride, which rotates 360 degrees and has Disney’s first-ever reverse launch on a roller coaster. On message boards, park visitors plot when to take their Dramamine and ask which stomach-turning rides to skip.

You can try to beat motion sickness, but once it sets in, it’s already too late. The best way to stop motion sickness is to avoid situations that may provoke it. But if you’re like me and absolutely must ride: Look at the horizon. Try Dramamine. Consider acupressure—press the centre of the forearm, three fingers’ width away from the wrist. Stay hydrated. Don’t eat foods that are spicy, greasy or fatty (i.e., the typical food you’d find at a fair). Try not to get annoyed when your friend says, “I didn’t think it was that bad.” 

The seat on the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride was curved, so puke pooled under my butt and legs. Who’s going to clean this? I thought when the ride came to an end. Spaced out and doused in vomit, I stoodup and watched as the bench rolled away. I hurried toward the nearest unmoving wall, squatted and took deep breaths as my friends surveyed what had happened. The cool floor looked like a good place to lie for a while. Then I heard a voice.

“Ma’am, I have a room for you.” I glanced up and saw a kind employee looking down at me. From his expression, I could tell he had seen this before and knew exactly what to do. He ushered me to a door marked ‘for employees only’ and opened it to reveal a hidden space—one dedicated to unfortunate souls like me who couldn’t make it through the ride without getting sick.

There was a square basin that looked like a toilet filled with water. It was a special puke sink, with a silver flush handle. I hovered over it for a second, but I was all puked out. Two of my friends came in after me, and one of them was inspired to throw up too.

The small room had a normal sink and soap and throw-up bags and paper towels. I wiped off my shorts and legs, and removed my T-shirt, which was ruined. The attendant knocked on the door and asked if I needed anything. A new shirt. Shorts. Water. He came back with a blue T-shirt, size adult large, with a screen print of the Hogwarts castle. ‘Visit Enchanting Hogsmeade’, it read. A $27 [Rs 2,200] souvenir, free for the price of vomit. “No shorts,” he said.

As I scrubbed my body and donned my new T-shirt, I asked the attendant. “Does this happen a lot?”

“Pretty often,” he said.

I balled up my old T-shirt and my ruined hat and shoved them into a plastic bag. I was still shaky, but I took sips of water and felt ready to leave.

I wobbled through the busy gift shop toward the bright Florida sunlight, dazed as people dressed in Hogwarts-themed clothing moved around me.

I put my clammy hand to my cheek and took a SnapChat selfie with my barf bag. “Bag of shame,” I posted.

As I cowered in a shady area while my sister hustled around looking for a new pair of shorts for me, I thought about how quickly the illusion can shatter in theme parks: When you puke in a land of magic and whimsy, the wonder vanishes. 

© 2023 Emily Latimer. First published in Longreads.