They are "sticky" about not signing children in or out during the transition process, but it is for the safety of the children. THe meal times are posted in the children's navigator at the beginning of the cruise, along with a notice of the 15 minute "transition time." Once the children are counted and lined up, you cannot remove your child until they are logged in at the new location. The counsellors print out a list of which children they have, and for safety, they need to arrive at the new location with that same number of children.
Yes, if a child is in the club/lab at meal time, they are taken to the buffet. If you don't want your child taken, you have to sign them out before meal time--or for an older child, give them "sign out" privleges where they can sign themselves out. That's what we did after a less than satisfactory experience with the transition procedure (I showed up on time, but they had started lining up early and refused to let me take my kid!). We made the rule that if the lab started lining up/cleaning up to get ready to eat, my DD was to sign herself out and go back to the cabin, I'd meet her there. This was because we had planned on eating as a family and she didn't like to go to Topsiders with the lab crew.
Yes, you have to pay attention to the meal times....
However...if you have late seating and are planning on taking your child to meals with you, you are probably planning on taking them to the shows (your shows are during early seating dinner). Thus, you don't want them in the club/lab during that time.
Your seating assignment makes no difference to the counsellors. At the club/lab level, if a child is signed into programming, they are expected to do whatever the programming schedule says. There are exceptions--a little one who needs a nap is certainly allowed to lie down in the club. However, a 9 year old is not allowed to play on the computers if the activity is making flubber. DOn't get me wrong...there is a lot of time where the "scheduled activity" is "Hanging in the lab" which means doing whatever you want in their very nice facility. Again, for safety, the group is kept together. If the activity is character drawing in Animator's, a child is not allowed to be napping in the club. In that case, the parent would be paged to pick up the child.
The "rules" are rarely intrusive. With an older (lab age) child, we go thru the navigator and mark the activities she wants to do. THen I remind her when it is almost time for those activities. We get 2 copies of the Navigator (one for her, one for me). We also review in the morning what she had previously selected to be sure that is still what she wishes to do. At any time, a kid can request that their parent be paged. I had promised my child (when she was club age) that I'd come if she ever wanted me called. She tested me once--just wanted to know that I'd really come, and didn't want to leave! The only time I found the policies intrusive was the time I came to get her on time and found that the "count" procedure was in progress and they wouldn't release her. IT took fully 20 minutes to get her back, as they insisted that she be taken to Topsiders and logged in there even though it was obvious to everyone that she wasn't eating with them.
Still...safety has to be more important than convenience.
