My son was in the 3-5 age group on RCI. On port days, the kids club opened 30 minutes before you could get off the ship so that parents could get to their tours, etc. I dont know if they shut for lunch on those days as we always took our son with us. If you are ever late picking up your child, they will charge a per minute fee, however, if on an RCI sponsored tour and it ran late, you were not charged. On sea days, the club opened later (around 9 I think) and would run until lunch time. Then it would close for about 2 hrs so the staff could grab lunch and reccouperate before opening again. They would close right before the early dinner, and open after that (about 2 hrs later). That session ran until 10, and then you could pay for late night hours, but our son was usually wiped out, even before 10. It was not a big deal to go and get him/drop him off (beats waiting in car pool lines). They start pickup about 15 minutes before they close, and thats usually when I went to avoid any last minute rush. Never had a problem. Of course, you can come and go whenev er you want, but sometimes the kids were eating ice cream, watching a movie, etc elsewhere on the ship. They did give us pagers which only worked onboard the ship. A few nights, they did have a dine with the staff program, but you needed to sign up by noon.
alison