As I try to get myself and the kids over our "Disney Hangover", I've had a few days to reflect on what was truly an amazing week for us in DisneyWorld.

I'm not even going to tell you about the rides because you already know those are spectacular. It was amazing to me for these reasons:

1) I didn't give one Time Out. I threatened the kids with things like "I can't believe you're in the Happiest Place on Earth and you're still cranky"...but so were a lot of exhausted kids and parents I walked by. I said to a friend "I have to remember: They're still the same kids, just in a better environment."

2) I know the Disney customer service experience is renowned around the world. I was still totally unexpected to be blown away the way I was. I said to one employee (or Cast Member) "If I had to be this happy all the time, I'd be pretty sarcastic after a while." She said "Oh, it's easy. I love what I do. I love the people and I believe in the product."

3) The impact it would have on my children - not only on the "This is the most amazing week of my life!" scale (which they said, and it was), but on the spirit of Volunteerism which hopefully was passed on to them.

Let me explain: The main reason I was at Disney was to participate in the press event for their recently launched "Give a Day, Get a Disney Day" campaign. Basically, participants sign up through Volunteer Canada (in Canada) and after they have performed a day of volunteer effort, they receive a free Disney park pass. Disney's goal was to have 1,000,000 people signed up in this first year. Six weeks into the campaign they had 600,000. Hmm I guess people like going to Disney or something.

We were there for the big unveiling of the world's largest (Guinness World Book certified) canned food sculpture. What was just as amazing as how this sculpture looked, was that the 115,000 cans it took to make this sculpture would be donated to foodbanks in the Florida area. When we arrived the sculpture was concealed by thousands of white balloons. Kermit the Frog made an appearance to talk about the effort (and to diss Fozzy Bear's jokes, which I loved), and then the master "revealer" of them all, Extreme Home Makeover's host, Ty Pennington came out and with his megaphone blasted "Raise those balloons!"

Our role? We were asked to donate an hour of our time to help package and sort the food cans. Let's just say my kids initial reaction to being asked to take time to this while at DisneyWorld was not exactly enthusiastic. (Can I use the words "this sucks" in a post about Disney?) But when we arrived at our designated time, they were pretty excited to be greeted by Disney stars from Zeke & Luther, Camp Rock...and some little known fella called Joe Jonas.

With that as the backdrop, they really got into sorting the cans, taping the boxes, and being a part of a well oiled volunteer machine. We went outside afterwards to plant some trees and listen to the screams of girls trying to get close to Joe (my son shook his hand - girls who want to touch my son's hand are welcome to do so). I was lucky enough to be asked to do a remote broadcast from the Rose Garden in front of the Cinderella Castle, for CTV. With the flawless help of the Disney production and p.r. teams, we pulled it off.

I'll post next about the Disney Social Media Moms Conference I also attended while there, and share some insights on Chris Brogan, Guy Kawasaki, Kathy Ireland, and one of the most hysterical comediennes I've heard in a long time. Stay tuned.