Half days and full days that share one spot
Selling mornings, afternoons and full days without overselling the room: how two half-day campers share one spot, what to charge for each, and lunch.
Jan 13, 2026 · 5 min read
A parent calls in January: "Do you do mornings only? Noah's four and he's done by lunch." You say yes, because of course you do, and then you open the spreadsheet and realize you have no idea how many mornings you can sell. The camp has 20 spots. Twelve are full days. Is a morning a whole spot, half a spot, or something else?
It's something else. Get it right and half days fill the gaps that full days leave. Get it wrong and you either turn away campers you had room for, or you have 26 children in a room built for 20.
A spot is a place in the room at a given time
The question isn't how many campers registered. It's how many are in the room at the busiest moment of the day.
Take a camp with 20 spots, running 9:00 to 3:00, with a morning (9:00 to 12:00) and an afternoon (12:30 to 3:00). Say you've sold:
- 12 full days
- 6 mornings
- 5 afternoons
That's 23 campers, which looks like three too many. But in the morning, the room holds 12 + 6 = 18. In the afternoon, 12 + 5 = 17. The busiest moment is 18, so you have two spots left, and each of them can be sold as a full day, a morning, or a morning and an afternoon to two different families.
The two mistakes people make:
- Counting registrations. You stop at 20 campers and turn away the afternoon family when there was room all along.
- Capping each option on its own. Twenty full days, twenty mornings, twenty afternoons, each with its own limit. Nothing stops you from selling 40 children for the morning.
One rule fixes both: a morning camper and an afternoon camper share one spot, and a full-day camper takes it all day.
Keep the hours from touching
This only works if the morning and afternoon don't overlap. If mornings run 9:00 to 12:30 and afternoons start at 12:00, then at 12:15 both groups are in the room, and they each need their own spot. Your two half days now cost you two places, not one.
Leave a gap, or at least end one exactly when the other starts. A half hour between them (12:00 and 12:30) also gives you a calmer handover, which matters more than it sounds.
Pricing each half
A half day isn't half the price, and families don't expect it to be. Your counsellor is on shift all day whether the morning camper stays or not, and the room is yours all day either way. Most of your cost is the day, not the child.
A worked example for a five-day week:
| Option | Hours | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Full day | 9:00 to 3:00 | $260 |
| Morning | 9:00 to 12:00 | $165 |
| Afternoon | 12:30 to 3:00 | $140 |
The morning is about 63% of the full day, which is a comfortable place to start. The afternoon is shorter, and it's also the harder half to sell: younger campers are tired by then, and more parents want mornings. A lower price helps it move.
Now check the pair. A morning and an afternoon together bring in $305, against $260 for one full-day camper in the same spot. That extra $45 pays for what a split spot really costs you: two families' forms, two sets of questions, and a handover in the middle of the day. If your pair brings in less than a full day, your half days are too cheap.
Per hour, the morning ($11 an hour) costs more than the full day ($8.67 an hour). If a parent points that out, say so plainly: "Half days cost a little more by the hour, because the counsellor and the room are here all day either way."
Watch the balance as you sell
Mornings sell first. By March you may have sold every morning and still have five afternoons. Those five are real spots, but only an afternoon family can take them.
A few ways to keep it even:
- Offer the afternoon to the morning families' friends. "We have a few afternoon spots left, great for kids who nap at home first."
- Pair them at the desk. When a full-day family asks about mornings only, mention the afternoon is open if they ever need it.
- Look at it weekly in spring. If mornings fill with a month to go, the remaining spots are effectively afternoons. Say so on your website ("Week 3: afternoons only") so nobody's disappointed at checkout.
Lunch in the middle
Noon is the hardest moment of a mixed camp: the morning group is leaving, the afternoon group is arriving, and the full-day campers are eating. Plan it like a drop-off, because it is one.
- Decide who eats. The simplest rule: mornings end before lunch, afternoons start after it, and only full-day campers eat at camp. Then nobody's half-eaten sandwich goes home at 12:15.
- Give the handover its own counsellor. One person at the door with the pick-up list, the rest with the full-day group at the tables.
- Use a different door or a different corner for half-day pick-up, so leaving campers don't pull the lunch table along with them.
- Put the big moments in the morning. If Friday's show is at 2:30, your morning campers miss it. Either move it to 11:00, or tell morning families clearly and invite them back for it.
The wording for your camp page, ready to copy:
Mornings run 9:00 to 12:00, before lunch. Afternoons start at 12:30, so please send them fed. Full days bring a lunch and two snacks. Half-day campers join the same group and the same activities as full-day campers for their part of the day.
In Caletan
In Caletan, a camp's options each have their own hours and price, and they all share the camp's spots: a morning camper and an afternoon camper take one between them, and the camp counts the most campers there at once. Families see how many spots are left for each option when they register. The camps guide shows how to set it up, and camp registration has the rest.
