One salad shattered years of trust in Disney for Mae Bodziony, when she suffered a severe allergic reaction at a theme park restaurant. The 25-year-old says staff at the Be Our Guest restaurant assured her that her meal would be free of tree nuts, to which she is allergic.
Yet Mae tells Allergic Living how she left Be Our Guest at Walt Disney World in an ambulance, terrified for her life. “I didn’t have any faith that I was going to survive. It was the scariest thing that I’ve experienced,” she says.
Mae explains that her anaphylactic reaction came on quickly, prompting her to administer her EpiPen at the Beauty and the Beast-themed restaurant. She needed more epinephrine once at the emergency room, and suffered rebound reactions over three days at the hospital.
“I felt scared the whole time in the restaurant and the ambulance,” Mae says. It was the first time she doubted that she would be OK after using her epinephrine auto-injector for an allergic reaction.
Mae and her family of Wakefield, Rhode Island are suing Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, which owns Be Our Guest, located in the Florida theme park’s Magic Kingdom. The lawsuit, filed in July 2025, accuses the entertainment giant of negligence and inflicting emotional distress.
Mae’s mom Stacey Bodziony says the experience was traumatic for the entire family. Mae, her mom, dad Matthew, and her brothers Mack and Van were vacationing together at Disney World when the reaction occurred. It had been their go-to vacation spot for 24 years because they trusted that Mae would be safe eating at the theme park’s restaurants with her allergy, Stacey Bodziony says.
But now, the reaction and the aftermath “have tainted my family’s most cherished memories,” Mae’s mom says.
Mae’s Reaction Escalated Swiftly
The lawsuit against Disney, filed in the Orange County Circuit Court, calls for a jury trial. Laurel Francoeur, the family’s attorney, tells Allergic Living the entertainment giant is “denying all liability” in the case after a review by its insurance company.
“That is very disheartening,” says Francoeur of the Francoeur Law Office near Boston.
Walt Disney Parks and Resorts did not respond to Allergic Living’s request for comment on the lawsuit.
The Bodziony family had been enjoying their big family vacation, when they sat down for dinner on August 19, 2024. After dinner, they had special plans for family photos and watching the park fireworks on what was meant to be the final night of the trip.
When Stacey Bodziony had made the dinner reservation at Be Our Guest, she says she noted Mae’s tree nut allergy, and her own allergy to wheat. The mom and daughter say they reminded the staff of their allergies when they arrived. They were handed an allergy-friendly menu.
Mae and her mom say they both ordered salad from the allergy-friendly menu, and discussed their allergies with the server. The food arrived with an “allergy meal” marker on it, but Mae says she still confirmed that her food was tree nut-free.
However, as soon as she finished eating her salad, Mae says her lips felt itchy. She took some antihistamine pills. But she says the reaction quickly progressed with her throat swelling as she struggled to breathe.
So she took out her EpiPen to treat herself at the table. Her mom also alerted the staff that Mae was having an allergic reaction and that they needed help, Stacey Bodziony says.
“My reaction continued to get worse and worse. I knew I needed the EpiPen,” Mae tells Allergic Living.
Mae Bodziony: Rebound Reactions
Mae and her mom contend the restaurant manager asked Mae if she could wait to use her auto-injector until they could move her to a less public area. She declined, and used her EpiPen right there. Mae says they were then moved to a hallway area away from the other diners, until the ambulance arrived.
She recalls feeling very frightened as she rode in the ambulance with her mom. When she arrived at the AdventHealth Celebration Hospital in Kissimmee, Florida, her reaction had worsened.
Mae needed more epinephrine, and was given steroids, antihistamine and Pepcid. She was admitted overnight for observation, according to the lawsuit.
But Mae did not recover that quickly. Instead, she experienced a biphasic (secondary) anaphylactic reaction the next morning. Then rebound allergic reactions requiring treatment twice a day for three more days. The suit says she was discharged from the hospital on August 23, 2024 – over three days later.
“Every time I would react again, I was thinking ‘this is the end,’” Mae says. The lawsuit says the whole family experienced extreme emotional distress worrying about her health.
“It was really scary,” Stacey Bodziony says. “I had to tell my daughter ‘you’re going to be OK,’ but at the same time I was panicking inside.”
Meanwhile, she managed the logistics of extending the family’s stay. Calls to change flights, extend their hotel stay and rental car became daily chores.
The lawsuit says that “Disney did not reach out to the family to check on Mae’s condition.” Stacey Bodziony says the resort hotel did contact her to comp the extended room costs, but only after hearing from her travel agent.
“It never really felt like anybody cared,” Mae’s mom says.
Disney Fan Mae: Loss of Trust
The lawsuit seeks more than $250,000 in damages plus costs, and attorney’s fees. The lawsuit points to the extra costs incurred for changing travel plans, along with $40,000 in hospital charges.
The Bodziony family were big and longtime Disney fans – Stacey and Matthew even honeymooned at the park. They say Mae’s experience tarnished the magic of a place they had always enjoyed.
Disney used to be “a place where you get to feel safe” and escape reality for a short time, Mae says. But with the traumatic end to the family’s 2024 vacation, she doesn’t want to return to the Magic Kingdom.
For Mae, the lawsuit is a way to seek justice, she says. “I just feel so disappointed. I remember thinking, ‘What did you do to me? I trusted you to feed me.’”
After returning home, Mae says she continued to experience a physical response to the reaction, including chest pain, for about a month. At first, she says she was afraid to eat anything, even her mom’s cooking.
The family hopes the lawsuit can help to make Disney safer for other families navigating food allergies, Stacey Bodziony says.
Other Disney Allergy Lawsuit
This is the second recent lawsuit brought against Disney related to food allergy safety. In February 2024, Jeffrey Piccolo filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Walt Disney Parks and Resorts and two other defendants on his wife’s behalf. His wife, Dr. Kanokporn (Amy) Tangsuan, who was allergic to dairy and nuts, died of a severe allergic reaction in October 2023.
The 42-year-old New York physician suffered a fatal reaction after eating food at the Raglan Road Irish pub in the Disney Springs shopping and dining complex, Piccolo’s lawsuit states. The husband alleges that he and his wife asked about the allergies, and were reassured by restaurant staff that her meal was free of nuts and dairy.
The lawsuit accuses Raglan Road and its owner The Great Irish Pubs, Inc., as well as Disney Parks and Resorts, of negligence. Disney doesn’t own Raglan Road, but it owns the Disney Springs dining and shopping complex, including the building housing the restaurant. Piccolo’s suit alleges Disney has a responsibility for the menu, training, hiring and food allergy practices of the restaurant.
In legal filings, Disney has attempted to distance itself from the case against the restaurant. The case is expected to go to trial.
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