I see how the close closing times would make everything crazy. Our parking lot barely accomodates the res camp parents at drop off and pick up so there's no way. However, the res campers get out on Saturday morning so that eliminates that trickiness.
We too have DC swim time during RC rest hour. The DC staff at my camp are assigned a unit to help in during the hours that they are working but their campers are at home. However, it's dinner in the dining hall, their TO during evening activties, and then bedtime. I know there is an hour between our DC TO ending and our nights in and out duty where the DC staff are supposed to offer help. In the little kid units it's rarely used because their groups are self-contained in a cabin with a bathroom and there are few enough kids I never needed help as a res counselor except when i had the occasional kid with bedtime meds that we hadn't already gotten or that needed a little grown-up supervision getting to and from...
I find that Day Camp is super high activity since there is no real rest times, but that I rest better once my kids are off camp even though I'm still eating in the dining hall and have duties. Their counselor is still in charge of them and I'm an assistant. As a RC counselor I'm never really "off" in my mind. Sure I might be at Target or showing or napping but my mind is always thinking about what's next or a conflict between two campers because I will see them again in 2 hours and because they are still camp's responsibility and therefore mine. But there is more rest time throughout the day where I can read my own books or work on friendship bracelets and still be with my campers while they are playing quietly together or having me time.
The GS camp I worked at that had combined RC and DC did it similar to Teensters camp in that the staff were off once they had finished their responsibilities with DC, usually about 5:30. We could eat in the dining hall or we could do our own thing. However, we got paid the same as we did when we worked RC. That's one reason my current camp does it the way they do, everyone is working all but 2 hours of the day. Well, except the RC are "on call" while sleeping if their campers wet the bed or are sick or scared and the DC staff are usually in a staff cabin in a camper unit so they are never really on call at night except in extremely rare emergencies. I think this is a nice balance between the hectic DC schedule with no rest hour while still working most of the waking hours so they aren't getting a whole lot more time off than the RC staff.
