Roisin Ingle: A night of pool, ping pong and keeping to myself that story of making a small boy cry

This time last year, I was in Orlando, Florida, averaging about 30,000 steps a day, queuing for hours in baking heat and having, quite unexpectedly, the best family holiday of my life. Flicking through the photos from those unforgettable days, I’ve been feeling sad but also grateful that I was able to spend most of a year saving up for what was an expensive, exhilarating couple of weeks.

I thought it was going to be a gift of a holiday to my teenage daughters for their 13th birthday. It turned out I was also self-gifting. My dream holiday as a seven-year-old was apparently still my dream holiday at 50. Show me the girl at seven and I’ll show you the wide-eyed grown woman, weeping over fireworks beside Cinderella’s fairy-tale castle.

When I heard some new friends were planning a similar family holiday, I pushed aside the almost debilitating pangs of jealousy and invited myself to dinner to pass on the tips we had picked up traversing the magical highways and byways of Orlando’s Universal and Disney World theme parks.

Selfishly, it was also a chance to talk about the holiday and relive our experiences. I wanted to tell them about the must-try cheeseburger spring rolls from a cart in Disney’s Magic Kingdom. To reminisce about that time my friend Lisa and I finished the Escape to Gringotts Harry Potter adventure and, because nobody else was queuing up, got to ride it again immediately without even leaving our seats. Speaking of queues, I wanted to pass on tips about endurance – be like the Buddha and surrender – and about an all-you-can-eat buffet we discovered called the Golden Corral.

Friends, bad singing and Love Actually: Miriam O’Callaghan, James Kavanagh, Marian Keyes and more on their Christmas traditions

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Róisín Ingle: I’ve always been a sucker for a dark or sad song set around Christmas

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Which of the three Pauls nominated for the Booker prize will win? There’s only one Paul for me

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Róisín Ingle: When red storm warnings rage it’s worth remembering the words of Joan Baez

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Near the top of the queue, one of the extremely professional theme park staff singled me out to go on a “tester seat” to see if I’d actually fit on the ride. This was done with such empathy that I didn’t even feel embarrassed

My new friend has an architecturally impressive house, tall and slim like him, with a circular glass lift like something out of Willy Wonka’s factory. His partner crafted gin cocktails with rosemary-infused syrup she had made herself, and we ate a comforting spaghetti Bolognese.

There’s a balance with new friends, isn’t there? How much should you divulge on those first friendship dates? A couple of times I thought about telling them about the incident on Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure, in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, but stopped myself out of mortification. (I can tell you though, right? We go way back.)

The ride is themed around the late Robbie Coltrane’s Potter character Rubeus Hagrid and features Hagrid’s favourite mode of transport, one of those-old fashioned motorbikes with a sidecar attached. On that first morning in Universal, the children had run ahead with their fathers, so Lisa and I were queuing up together, neither of us really looking forward to a 50mph ride that features more launches than any other roller coaster in the world not to mention a vertical drop of nearly 17 feet.

[ Harry Potter reboot: hate it all you like, it’s going to be bigger than Hagrid ]

As we queued we both decided we would rather be in the sidecar than the motorbike, reasoning that it was somehow safer. Near the top of the queue, one of the extremely professional theme park staff singled me out to go on a “tester seat” to see if I’d actually fit on the ride. This was done with such empathy that I didn’t even feel embarrassed as I sat in the test sidecar and discovered the safety restraint would not fit me. Part of me was relieved I wouldn’t be able to go on the roller coaster, until it was suggested I try the slightly roomier test motorbike seat on which I got the green light. We were good to go.

The less said about the ride the better. Lisa, beside me in the sidecar, screamed like she was being murdered for the entire three-minute ride. Gripping the motorbike handles, I was too petrified to make a sound, eyes squeezed closed, face wet with tears of terror. Neither of us went on it again, even though it became the favourite ride of everybody else in our party. On my final evening, feeling braver after days pushed out of most of my comfort zones, I joined a “single rider” queue for Hagrid’s, which was a speedier queue than the usual one. At the top of the queue, I informed the staff member that I had to go on the motorbike, but he said single riders didn’t get a choice and I’d have to negotiate that with the person I ended up riding with. The person I ended up riding with was a small boy who didn’t speak English. Through hand gestures and smiles I asked his father, who was riding with his other son, if it was okay that I went on the motorbike beside his child in the sidecar. The father agreed.

“I’m so sorry,” I kept repeating as myself and the bawling boy were led briskly through the backstage bowels of the ride

Maybe it was the cheeseburger spring rolls or it might have been the all-you-can-eat-buffet but as I sat on the motorbike beside the little boy and pulled down the safety restraint, I did not get the green light. The ride was moving now, and a staff member, as kindly as he could, told me I’d have to get off. And not just me, but the little boy in the adjoining sidecar too. I hope you never find yourself standing beside a confused and crying little boy who can’t speak English as his father whizzes off into the distance on a roller coaster. “I’m so sorry,” I kept repeating as myself and the bawling boy were led briskly through the backstage bowels of the ride. Three minutes later the boy and his somehow not furious father – “is okay, is okay” he smiled on seeing my stricken face – were reunited and immediately given another go on Hagrid’s motorbike, this time with no queuing.

I thought about telling our new friends the story, but bottled it in the end. After dinner, we played table tennis on the dining table and then the top was taken off only to reveal a beautiful pool table underneath. I’m not sure whether to start saving up for our next trip to Orlando or for this miraculous piece of furniture which, I’m informed, was imported from Belgium by a man in Sutton.

The night of pool, ping pong and holiday memories reminded me of the importance of games and thrills at any age and of a beautiful little boy I accidentally traumatised this time last year in Orlando, Florida. I’m pretty sure his smiling, laughing, forgiving father will have turned it into a funny family anecdote by now. That’s what I’m telling myself anyway.