First, there is no such thing as taking it too serious. You never know.

Second, ALWAYS take the 10-30 seconds to put your shoes on. Besides your footsies being cold outside in this instance (although not as bad as winter), you could step on something in hallway or fire stairs & cut your feet, burn them, etc, etc, which would then slow you down in evacuating, the opposite of what you want to achieve especially w/ babies.

If anything, the lesson is to have your shoes (and wallet & cell phone) close to the bed so you can grab them, spouse/better half, the babies & hightail it out of there faster (walking, not running).

While the hotel & fire dept doesn't want you dwadling, most times the 30 seoncs to 1.5 minutes to put on shoes, a coat, grab the wallet won't matter. Doesn't mean you should pack up or get fully dressed, but unless the fire is next door you've got a few seconds.

Some FTers as noted in the thread I linked to put everything they'd need in one spot in the hotel room before they go to bed. I've not done that, but it's probably not a bad idea.

BTW - the sharp timing was probably just coincidence. The one thing that isn't is that Murphy's Law says the alarms will always go off in the middle of the night.

Now - on to important things. It's rather a rule of thumb that the firemen are always goodlooking, at least in the US. Does that hold true for the UK? I realize you might have been more concerned about the babies, but thought I'd check

Cheers.