The Early Bird Catches - Mickey Mouse?

Last week my family and I went to Disney World for a quick two-day visit. Being excited first timers, we were there early – about 45 minutes before the opening of the park. As we were spraying on sunscreen and planning our strategy for which rides we were going to hit first, a nice lady in a Disney uniform came over and asked us if we’d like to be the “Opening Family of the Day.”

“What’s that?” I asked pleasantly (though my husband said I looked at her skeptically. Maybe that was because I was certain I was about to be asked fill out a 72 page survey. Okay, so I said “what’s that?” as I looked at her skeptically.)

Turns out “Opening Family of the Day” gets you a pre-opening tour of Magic Kingdom in a cute little Disney golf cart-type vehicle, a private meet-and-greet with all the Disney characters (for the uninitiated, those autographs are like gold), and a train ride with the characters to the opening ceremony where we threw confetti to the crowds below to officially open the park.
Wow. You can bet my kids won’t forget that day –ever.

Our extremely festive tour guide Barbara told the girls “Remember this – you had to get up really early this morning, and look at the reward! So next time you want to go back to sleep when your mom tells you to get up remember - the early bird catches the worm!”

Funny thing is, my girls both have their dad’s “up and at ‘um” attitude in the morning. I, on the other hand, have never been accused of being an early morning person. Or even a mid-morning person. If it’s happening before lunch, it’s gonna take a lot of caffeine to get me there firing on all cylinders.

So Barbara’s message was probably most effective with me. Next time I want to fling the alarm clock out the window, I’m going to remember my early-morning encounter with a special Mouse. And maybe I’ll only hit the snooze button 3 times instead of 4. Okay 9 instead of 10.