What it's like to go to an amusement park with someone who suffers from low vision.

It was at Harry Potter World where I developed a heightened sense of awareness regarding accessibility. As someone who works for a company that serves people with disabilities, I honestly felt a bit of shame when I realized how little I think about accessibility (which is never).

Due to Brad’s medical history, he has retinopathy and is classified as 'low vision.'

In many of the lines, the lighting was so dim that he could not see his own hand in front of his face. It was here where I began acting as his physical guide, both holding his hand and providing verbal directions. "We are getting ready to take a sharp right turn," and "Automatic doors are opening in front of us."

Once we got up to the ride, a worker asked us how many riders we had, and we said “Two.” He waved us on. Brad just stood there. The employee somewhat snappily said, “Go ahead!” Brad turned to me and informed me that he cannot see hand gestures and relies on verbal cues. As a person with perfectly fine vision, I never realized how much I take for granted … such as being able to see hand gestures.

There were other parts of the trip where I began to understand better what my “role” will be in my and Brad’s relationship. For example, circling back to not liking crowds, I am also directionally challenged. My instinct is to rely on Brad to navigate us through places like airports and unfamiliar environments, but he struggles to read wayfinding signs and maps. In moments where I was highly overwhelmed due to crowds and fast paces, it was still up to me to be the “leader,” which I admittedly hated, but I continued to improve as our trip went on.

Brad also struggles with facial recognition, and he was highly embarrassed the few times his coworkers (that he usually only sees on camera) greeted us, and he either didn’t see them or could not identify them. Unfortunately, I was no help there because I don’t know his coworkers, but in other situations, it’s up to me to tell him who is approaching us.

There was one instance where we were in a crowded room in Harry Potter World, and we were instructed to move toward the line, and Brad stumbled over the person in front of him. The man was gracious and told us to go ahead, but my knee-jerk reaction was to explain that we didn’t mean to cut, that Brad suffers from low vision.

As the week concluded, Best Buy asked Brad to take a survey providing feedback on the event, and he explained that during the welcome reception, the flashing lights in the rafters (which were meant purely for celebration) blinded him. He said, “As soon as I would get my vision back, they would blind me again, making it very difficult to both navigate through a crowd of hundreds of people AND find an available seat.”

While the lights were meant to be a fun effect, they were debilitating for at least one person. As someone who does some event planning for my job, this is something I would have NEVER considered.

Taking this trip with Brad opened my eyes (no pun intended) and provided me a new perspective. Instead of getting impatient while in long lines, I now try to be grateful that at least I can navigate those lines with full vision.

I guess my point is, if you looked at Brad, you would have no idea that he has a disability, but he does. As cliché as it is, we truly never know what the person beside us is going through.