Hi Laurie,
Well here's what happened with our 4 girls. The two older girls (10 and 11) were given check-in and check-out privledges. Basically they could come and go as they pleased. They were required to at least page us and let us know where they were going but we didn't have to return to 'check' them out. They stayed in the clubs doing the activities until a movie they wanted to see was on or they wanted to see what was going on with us. Mostly, we hardly ever saw them except at dinner and the show when I made them join us. As far as the 8 year old, she was not allowed to check herself out without one of us actually coming to the room to get her. We never got a page and we also never saw her. She had an absolute blast. They don't just stay in the rooms all day either. They travel all over the ship doing stuff like bridge tours, game shows, lunch, and just general exploring. Lastly, my 6 year old was one of the oldest in the 5-6 year old group. That group is in the younger oceaneer's club with the 3-4 year olds. She got a bit bored at times because they have a lot more 'down' time where it's just open play. She spent more time with us but we really didn't mind. We tried to make sure she was able to be there for the scheduled activities and then we picked her up during the 'free time'. It worked out great. We got some time to ourselves but we also spent time with the kids since this was our family vacation.
By the way, before we left we wondered about the pager program. Basically, you get a single text pager. When one of your kids needs you they send a text page that says something like "your 10-12 old is checking out to go to the movie in the theater" or "your 6 year old wishes to be picked up". This really helps a lot so I always knew what was going on with the kids.
Hope info this helps.
Wendy