Denna LOVES daycare. She's 14 months old now, and she just spent a week at her daycare place while her humans took a vacation in MX (they do boarding, too).
The one thing I would say is be very, very careful about picking your daycare. We have been to two now. The first being where she spent the week = and where we've been customers for over a decade with our past dogs. This place is AWESOME. Their staff is very dog-smart. They know which dogs to put together and which to keep apart. They know when to take one out for a short 'time-out' and best of all, the dogs come home with all the manners they went in with! Of course, the place is run by a dog trainer, too (positive/clicker method) - and she owns multiple mastiffs, which doesn't hurt, either.
The second daycare we went to a few times - because we like the trainer (more traditional methods), and it was closer. But, it was new, so not as many dogs. That may be a good thing for most, but for Denna, that meant play NON-stop, just because the pickings for play-mates was so slim. While I trust the staff and location, they did have to call us one day because Denna developed a limp. They needed to have put her in a 'time-out' more due to over-exertion than any behavior issues. Denna does not know her own limits, and will literally play 'til she drops. When she was boarding at place #1, we had her on the "extended nap plan". I knew with being there 10 days, she was going to need some help pacing herself.
But, I should add, Denna is a social butterfly. We've worked on that with puppy play-groups and taking her to all sorts of places as she's grown, but being an EM, I think we're less likely that she'll get to "guardy" and anti-social. So far, she's not showing any tendency toward anti-social behavior, but I do keep my eyes open at the dog parks for signs that she's tired of being the 'butterfly'. So far, that's not been a problem.
