What’s worse than a single’s cruise? Four women bunking together in something roughly the size of a large walk-in closet? Maybe. Dinner seating with strangers? Warmer. Rebuffing the advances of someone whose shirt is unbuttoned uncomfortably low? Yep, that’s the one.
Suzanne and Mary Jo go head-to-head to see who can land the best looking man, and we meet Claude, who is a darn delight -- and the subject of this week’s Salina’s Sidebar.
This week’s Extra Sugar is all about our personal highs and lows on the high seas. (See what we did there?)
Want more? Check out these reads:
Come on, let’s get into it!
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Transcript
Salina: Hey, Nikki.
Nikki: Hey, Salina.
Salina: Hello and welcome to the Sweet Tea & TV podcast.
Nikki: Hey, y'all.
Salina: That's probably better on my contribution.
Salina: I liked it, succinct.
Salina: You just got to keep it moving.
Salina: So we're here again.
Salina: We're still in season two.
Salina: We're moving and trucking right along to episode eight.
Salina: But let's work our way into this.
Nikki: Episode real quickly with a tough questions.
Salina: With some tough questions that really just.
Nikki: Turn the grill on.
Salina: Bust your hump hump, busters.
Salina: These actually don't seem too terribly bad, so we'll go ahead and pop on in with Nikki.
Salina: Which talent would you most like to.
Nikki: I have two frontrunners.
Salina: Oh, let me try and guess.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: But I wanted to go ahead and say that I actually don't know.
Salina: You could also be a lovely singer.
Salina: Already you don't sing for me a lot, which I find to be a crying shame.
Salina: But would it be that you would like to be a very talented singer just knowing how much you love T swift?
Nikki: I think that's a good guess.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: I think you're wrong less about singing and more about just being musical.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: People can just sit down and play a piano.
Nikki: Sure wish I could do that.
Nikki: I took violin lessons for seven years, and I can play the violin, but I can't sit down and write you a song.
Nikki: We used to have to do these listening tests where your director would play a note on the piano and you had to jot down what note it was.
Nikki: I still don't understand how people do that.
Nikki: I don't think it's real.
Nikki: I don't think anybody in that class passed that test because I still don't hear a note and know what it is after, like I said, seven years of violin lessons.
Nikki: So I just wish I would generally.
Salina: But you can play the violin.
Nikki: But I can play the violin.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: I have to read the music.
Nikki: It's not particularly great, but yeah.
Nikki: So if I wish I could be musical like that.
Nikki: The other one, my second runner was, I wish that I could learn languages quickly.
Nikki: I don't know that that's did you say talents?
Nikki: I don't know that that's quite a talent.
Salina: Who cares?
Salina: We'll also define what talent is.
Nikki: That's true.
Nikki: I think it's a talent.
Nikki: I think it's something unique about you that you can catch on to a language super fast.
Salina: I agree with that.
Nikki: I like that.
Nikki: What about you?
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: I like both of those a lot.
Nikki: Come up with a new one now.
Salina: I'm like, I wish I could just be talented.
Salina: I think in general, every now and then there's that person who comes along and they can sing and they're pretty or good looking or they're also a sharp dresser.
Salina: But when you sit down with them, oh, they play concert piano, and then they're a French pastry chef on the weekends and all this, and I'm just trying to shower.
Salina: So I'll really take whatever the good Lord above wants to give me.
Nikki: That's true.
Salina: What you got?
Salina: I'll take it.
Nikki: And it's never too late to take a talent, if you're listening, God.
Salina: Right.
Salina: But yours are so good, so I don't know.
Salina: Also, maybe just to be a little bit more intuitive in the kitchen, I think.
Nikki: Oh, yeah.
Salina: I'm not I will say that I tried to cook for Nikki and us today and she came in and I was like very disheveled and almost laid down on the floor and cried.
Nikki: She did look like she had a go at it.
Salina: I had lumpy sauce.
Salina: Had lumpy sauce.
Nikki: Lumpy sauce is enough to push you over the edge, in my opinion.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Nothing worse, but just more intuitive and just anything like where I feel like I would just like to be a multi talented.
Nikki: Is that too much to ask?
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: Just to be able to do everything.
Nikki: Why can't we be special like those people you were just talking about, like the Angenus who are good at everything.
Salina: I think that you're special.
Nikki: I think you're special.
Salina: Oh, look, see, I talk about that on here all the time while I'm still trying to figure out how to use a loofah.
Salina: You're making sourdough or making whatever in the kitchen or getting out your violin.
Nikki: That you could play.
Salina: Do you still have a violin?
Nikki: Actually, last fall picked it up and started playing again.
Nikki: I got Disney music and started playing it for the kids.
Salina: Are you going to bring it here?
Nikki: Probably not.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: But I could.
Salina: Did you just hear a doorbell?
Nikki: I did.
Nikki: I have a special delivery for us.
Salina: Oh, are you serious?
Nikki: I have a recording treat.
Salina: Shut up.
Nikki: I do.
Nikki: We're going to have to pause.
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: We'll be back.
Nikki: All right, we're back.
Salina: Nikki just had a special delivery to my house.
Nikki: I order things and then have them delivered to Salina's house.
Nikki: To be fair, it has your name on it.
Salina: Well, I mean, you're always welcome to order things to my I don't this may not be as special for you all, but it's very special for me.
Salina: It's from a new place in town right here in the backyard called Crumble Cookies.
Nikki: They just opened a location right by.
Salina: Salina's house and we are oh, and.
Nikki: They sucked me in with their Instagram.
Nikki: Marketing, I think is how I found out.
Salina: Yep.
Salina: So we've got a Reese's cookie.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: Dolce delete pecan pie and just regular old chocolate chip.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: And we'll share these on social media.
Nikki: I mean, we won't share the cookies, but you can see the pictures.
Salina: No, but at least if you live near us.
Nikki: And actually they've opened new locations.
Nikki: I saw today they posted this location.
Nikki: They put on Instagram that it was a grand opening, but also, like three other locations in other states.
Nikki: She's looking at me as she drinks over her tropical beverage that we made in honor of today's episode.
Salina: That's right.
Salina: Because today's episode we're having a proust interrupt us.
Nikki: Interrupt us.
Salina: Call cruising.
Salina: In addition to Nikki winning Person of the Day, she also made us tropical fruit drinks.
Salina: And so we're sipping on some tropical fruit drinks, learning about our inner workings, looking at some beautiful cookies, wishing we.
Nikki: Were talented, but instead we'll overlook our lack of talent and just eat and drink instead.
Salina: And that is the queen of transitions to our second proust question.
Salina: Okay, all of a sudden, I didn't answer it, but it's just because the cookies I'm so excited.
Nikki: I am so excited.
Nikki: There's too much going.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: I'm like, what's happening?
Nikki: There's cookies.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: I feel like we've gotten one similar to this one before, but it says if you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Salina: But I swear I'm taking them in order.
Nikki: I think it was physical.
Nikki: I think it was a physical question.
Salina: This is just anything you don't like about yourself?
Nikki: Just anything.
Nikki: Oh, my gosh.
Salina: Broaden it.
Nikki: Does something come to mind for you?
Salina: I like how you're trying to save on your moment while you're thinking one thing.
Salina: There's so many things that I would probably change about myself.
Salina: And this is why I think it's reminding me of another question, because I think it was like, what you don't like about yourself?
Nikki: Right?
Salina: And I said the thing I didn't like about myself the most was that sometimes I tend to stick my foot in my mouth, even though a lot of times I'm really thoughtful.
Salina: So if I don't like that the most, then I think that's the thing I want to change.
Nikki: Oh, yeah, that makes sense.
Salina: Do you want me to stall for time?
Nikki: No, I think I have my answer.
Nikki: I'm just trying to think of how to word it because it's years and years of introspection and I'm trying to work through it.
Nikki: It's just hard.
Nikki: It's the idea of dealing with difficult like having difficult conversations or dealing with difficult things.
Nikki: We've had shades of this conversation off air this morning, talking about totally unrelated sex in the City and just how sometimes you just sort of have to own a situation and just say it, call it for what it is, call it difficult.
Nikki: And I don't do very well with that.
Nikki: And I would rather just gloss over it, hope that it goes away.
Nikki: This happens a lot in my personal life and in my professional life, where I'm like, maybe if we just don't look at it, it'll go away.
Nikki: It'll just stop looking at us.
Nikki: We can all move on.
Nikki: And I wish I could change that.
Salina: That feels common though, right?
Nikki: I think so.
Salina: Even down to the physical, you're like, that mole is probably going to go away, right?
Nikki: It's probably going to be fine.
Salina: So I think that's incredibly natural.
Salina: So I don't know.
Salina: And I also hope that everyone I think it's really interesting and nice to be introspective.
Salina: And so I know some of these questions have been challenging, but they have been man.
Salina: While none of this has aired yet, we're on our 18th question.
Nikki: I'm a changed person.
Salina: I feel so much better now.
Salina: But I really do hope that this allows people to just listen to our answers.
Salina: Like, what does this mean for you?
Salina: And how can you apply this to your life?
Salina: Because we could all look inward.
Salina: I think we're all looking outward a lot.
Nikki: Yeah, I think a lot more people are looking inward these days because outward is so bleak.
Nikki: Oh, gosh, it's getting better.
Nikki: But I think with I have heard several people the great resignation, for instance, and, like, hearing people making career moves or family changes or I have a dear friend who just moved out west because she just was like, we need greener pastures.
Nikki: Like, we just need something new.
Nikki: We need a new adventure.
Nikki: So I think people are sort of looking into themselves and thinking about their lives and thinking like, is this really all there is?
Nikki: And is this really like, if God came back today, if Jesus were here, is this where I'd want him to find me?
Nikki: I think a lot of people are doing think, yeah.
Nikki: And we're just facilitating that, facilitating it.
Salina: Going through it all fair, whatever.
Salina: But I think it is nice that I know everybody has not had the ability to do that, but I think it is nice that some people are having the ability to do that, because I think it is okay to ask if there's more out there.
Salina: Reva.
Salina: McIntyre did.
Salina: Is there life out there so much she hasn't?
Salina: No.
Salina: No.
Nikki: Well, speaking of introspection and learning something new about yourself, I think Mary Jo learned something new about herself, and Suzanne may have as well in this episode.
Nikki: Episode eight, cruising.
Nikki: Is it cruising or cruising?
Salina: I think it's cruising.
Nikki: Cruising.
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: Check mark number one for missing the Southernism.
Nikki: We would have just said cruising, but cruising.
Nikki: When the ladies of Sugar bakers, this is Hulu.
Nikki: When the ladies of Sugar Bakers combine business with pleasure on a cruise ship, mary Jo and Suzanne discover just how close they really are to each other.
Nikki: IMDb says, when the ladies are on a singles cruise ship, suzanne and Mary Jo make a bet on who can catch the most attractive man.
Nikki: Any comments?
Salina: I think I like the second one better.
Nikki: I think I do too.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: All right.
Nikki: So It aired November 16 Check November 16, 1987.
Nikki: It was written by LBT.
Nikki: And directed by Harry Thomason.
Nikki: So come at me.
Nikki: Where are you at on general reactions?
Nikki: Stray observations, what you got?
Salina: I feel like maybe all of mine are very stray observations.
Nikki: Oh, perfect.
Salina: So one scene is almost a dead on repeat from episode one of this season, which is it comes up that Julia, this is before we go on the cruise.
Salina: This is when we're setting up everything.
Salina: It comes up that Julia is being harassed by some kids in the parking lot and Charlene goads her into giving more information.
Salina: And then Julia does like a very dry, funny impression of them.
Salina: OOH, girl, OOH, baby.
Nikki: So you said it was episode one.
Nikki: This hmm.
Nikki: My note says she's done this before.
Nikki: Was it this season?
Nikki: And I just couldn't find it.
Salina: Look at the puzle pieces coming together.
Nikki: Something just shifted in my head.
Nikki: It really still is a joy to see her deadpan.
Nikki: That is great.
Salina: It is.
Salina: I mean, she's got good she should be on a sitcom.
Salina: She's got good timing.
Nikki: She really does.
Nikki: She really does.
Salina: My other big picture thing about this is that we kind of moved back to regular Suzanne.
Salina: We had Suzanne of heart attacks where she sweeps in and swoops.
Salina: Yes, where she swoops in.
Salina: And she does like these really big gestures for Julia, and she's there for Julia while she's having a really tough time.
Salina: And then here again, we see more like self centered Suzanne come back again.
Nikki: Agreed.
Nikki: 100%.
Nikki: And actually, this episode brought me possibly the most Suzanne moment I've ever seen.
Nikki: And I think it might fly under the radar.
Nikki: Okay, so she stays out all night with the man whose name is somewhere else.
Salina: Trevor.
Nikki: Trevor, yes.
Nikki: That sounds sure.
Nikki: Call him Trevor.
Nikki: He looks like a Trevor.
Nikki: They've been out all night.
Nikki: She comes back in, presumably it's like six or 07:00 a.m.
Nikki: Because they keep saying she's been out all night.
Nikki: What's the first thing she does while these women are sleeping in their beds?
Nikki: She turns the light on.
Nikki: Straight up.
Nikki: Turns the light on.
Nikki: And all the other women are still asleep?
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: Is that not the most Suzanne thing?
Nikki: Like if you come into a cruise room stateroom in the middle of the night, first thing in the morning, your friends are all still sleeping.
Nikki: I get up every morning, an hour and a half to 2 hours before my husband same.
Nikki: I am tiptoeing around the room.
Nikki: I am grabbing my computer and getting my clothes and putting in my contacts, all without light.
Nikki: I do it in the dark.
Nikki: I use my phone flashlight.
Salina: That's it.
Nikki: Suzanne Mann.
Nikki: She's self centered.
Salina: Yeah, it's a pretty good example.
Nikki: That was my long winded way of saying agreed, but it's true.
Salina: And, I mean, I've nearly had several near misses in the bedroom when Casey is still asleep.
Nikki: I'm going to save that near misses.
Salina: In the bedroom I think you probably should.
Salina: Where I've nearly tripped, fallen, and broken my neck just trying to keep the lights off.
Nikki: And then Kyle says, you don't have to worry about it, I'll be fine.
Nikki: I'm like, no, you will not be fine.
Nikki: I will continue to tiptoe through the room because the one morning I wake him up, I'll hear about it for the rest of my life.
Salina: Rest of it.
Nikki: Can't handle it.
Salina: My other big thing is that it felt like a big deal to have a drag performer on network TV in the agree with that ahead of its time.
Nikki: I agree with that for TV.
Nikki: And I wonder so we've talked before about how this show became a gay icon.
Nikki: It is still something that resonates with the gay community.
Nikki: And I wonder if it was that an intentional thing, or did LBT set out with an agenda like that, or did it just happen?
Salina: I don't remember if I mentioned this or not, but we did have an extra sugar back for episode four with killing all the right ones.
Nikki: Killing all the right people.
Salina: Killing all the right people.
Salina: And in the extra sugar, we talk about LGBTQ community and how their history has played out over television.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: And one of the things that LBT.
Salina: Talked about in an interview that she did is that sometimes she would almost be harnessing a gay man's voice and put that voice inside of Julia.
Nikki: Oh, is that.
Salina: We went we covered so much in that particular extra sugar that I don't think I talked about that because there was just so much to talk um, so there may be something to what you're saying.
Salina: So I think that might help us see, without actually being able to talk to her, what her intentions were.
Nikki: Do you happen to know from all of that?
Nikki: Because I don't remember if you mentioned this.
Nikki: Does she have a particular tie to the gay community, like a family member or a friend, or is it just a general sense of inclusivity?
Salina: I can't answer that question, except for to say that she's done other things.
Salina: I think I've mentioned, too, here on the podcast that she did the documentary called Bridegroom, and it explores gay marriage, and this was prior to gay marriage being legal and explores, really, the dumb assery of it not being legal.
Salina: She's definitely passionate about it.
Salina: Why?
Salina: I don't know, except for I hope that's it just that let's just stop.
Nikki: Being aholes to people, right?
Salina: And let's all try to be good people.
Salina: But I don't know that there was something that really moved her.
Salina: Now, one thing that could be possible is that time her mom spent, right?
Salina: Okay.
Salina: So her mom passes away from AIDS.
Salina: She's in that hospital a lot.
Salina: A lot of those young men were gay men that were in the hospital with her.
Salina: I don't know if she was able to forge relationships with them or if that experience just changed her outlook, like maybe feeling like, I want to be a strong advocate for this group.
Salina: It's possible just because she is on record as talking about how terribly all these people were treated who were in these HIV sections of the hospital or whatever they were called.
Salina: So it could be a lot of things at play I don't know.
Nikki: I agree with you.
Nikki: And that character was a delight.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Am I cutting you off from any of your big picture tent?
Nikki: Mine are silly.
Salina: Oh, that's all I have left, is silly, so oh, good.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: Charlene had a diatribe on polyester, which made me laugh.
Salina: It is literally my first stray observation.
Nikki: The truth needs to be told, or something like that.
Nikki: That made me laugh really hard.
Salina: She gets so passionate about it.
Salina: She said something about how it's time the truth was told.
Nikki: That's what it is.
Nikki: She's really into it.
Nikki: We also get a Mary Joe Bosom reference, which I think is a bingo card entry for those who are following along.
Nikki: It's when she's lying on the top bunk and she's cheesed off by Suzanne's dress, touching her, and she makes a comment about how large her chest is, the cup sizes in the dress, or.
Salina: I actually so she's talking.
Salina: About Suzanne's bra cups in her dress, which I totally can relate with as being I'm like, well, I could be my age right now, but being younger and my friends, who they just developed and had some and I didn't, and being like, this can fit over my head, and so I can certainly relate with that.
Salina: But I think what she says, actually, this fascinates me.
Salina: These bra cups are huge.
Salina: It's kind of like this is the corral where Suzanne keeps her bosoms, and I'm the hired hand who guards them while she's taking them out on a midnight ride.
Salina: So grouchy about it, just in case.
Salina: You knew how much I know.
Salina: Well, sometimes when you don't have any breasts, you get grouchy.
Nikki: She certainly was grouchy.
Salina: That's what I've heard.
Nikki: Anyway, the last random thing I wanted to say, and I actually saved a picture of it so I could show it to you in real time because I always say these things, and then I don't really so all the cruise attire, the women's clothes, really two thumbs up for me.
Nikki: Like, they were great.
Nikki: I thought Suzanne, when she first entered the boat and she has that giant hat on, she just looks amazing.
Nikki: Throughout the whole cruise, there are various clothes.
Nikki: Did you just run out of coffee?
Salina: I'm always running out of coffee.
Nikki: There are various clothes that I really liked, except Mary Jo.
Nikki: What is that?
Nikki: So she's wearing this, like, white dress.
Nikki: What kind of collar is that?
Nikki: Is it a sailor collar?
Salina: I think so.
Salina: Or, like a version of it.
Nikki: So it's kind of like a sailor it's on it's on brand for being on a cruise, except it's like a white muslin dress with, like, blue stars across the front.
Nikki: This is, like, almost the last scene on the cruise ship, and I just I did her dirty.
Nikki: She shouldn't have had to wear some of the things she had to wear.
Salina: I do not disagree with you.
Salina: My other strays, Anthony, when they board the ship, he's in the room with them and I don't know.
Salina: I didn't go on a cruise in 1987, but I'm just saying that felt weird that you just walk on and you go in their room with them and you toast some champagne.
Nikki: It didn't feel weird to me at all, really?
Nikki: Because prior to 911 you could walk someone up to the airplane gate.
Salina: Those were the days.
Nikki: Yeah, it didn't feel weird to me.
Nikki: I think.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: It just used to be a lot more liberal.
Salina: Also.
Salina: Kind of like but just inconvenient for getting away because ships, the cruise ships are so big.
Nikki: I just wouldn't have done it.
Nikki: That seems like a lot of work.
Nikki: Bye, y'all.
Nikki: Have fun.
Nikki: But Anthony's committed.
Salina: Well, he did tell him good luck after the thing fell off the wall.
Nikki: He was there for him.
Salina: Suzanne so Trevor, that she meets on the ship and she thinks she's in love with him or whatever, he spends an hour and a half on his hair every day.
Salina: No, that's all I have.
Nikki: No.
Nikki: How?
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: Because my hair is basically down to my navel and it doesn't take me an hour and a half to do my hair.
Nikki: I had to wash my hair today and it took me about 30 minutes.
Nikki: And that's from washing to drying to straightening because I'm an elder millennial and I still straighten my hair.
Salina: It takes a while and that's a lot of work.
Nikki: It is.
Salina: But not an hour and a half.
Nikki: Certainly not.
Salina: I mean, there's lots of things that take me a really long time, so maybe I don't get that pass, but.
Nikki: I'm just saying maybe trevor sits and watches Sex in the City while he does his hair, too, like you do.
Nikki: Isn't that what slows you down when you get ready for work in the morning?
Salina: Not Sex in the City.
Salina: Just whatever.
Salina: I'm watching.
Nikki: Whatever it is.
Salina: Whatever I'm watching.
Nikki: I was going to say Lifetime movies, but that wasn't on brand for you.
Nikki: So I made a midstream shift.
Salina: Fair enough.
Salina: They also had to pay for food on a cruise and I thought that was weird.
Nikki: That was weird.
Nikki: I didn't give that much thought till this very moment, but agreed.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: That's part of the benefit of a cruise, in my opinion.
Salina: Breakfast.
Salina: I know you can pay extra for.
Nikki: Some things for the fancy restaurants.
Salina: Yeah, this is where they're like just hanging out in that really lovely dining area that they were in.
Salina: I have a Salina's sidebar.
Nikki: Oh, I like these.
Nikki: Okay, tell me more.
Nikki: It's a sidebar.
Nikki: Salina's sidebar.
Nikki: She's got a keyboard.
Nikki: Looking for a reward by digging deep in the obscure, taking us on a detour.
Nikki: What you got Salina in Salina's sidebar?
Salina: I was very interested in cloud.
Salina: Is it cloud or is it cloud?
Salina: I think it's just cloud.
Salina: Let's fancy him.
Nikki: Say what you want, Salina.
Salina: So Claude was like, you mean cloud.
Salina: I did.
Salina: Excuse me.
Salina: Cloud.
Salina: He was all things on the ship.
Nikki: From the what do you call him?
Nikki: The stateroom attendant to the server, to the entertainment.
Salina: He's just doing all the things.
Salina: He's probably driving the boat, and I.
Nikki: Think you could see it registering on the women's face, what kind of cruise they were on.
Nikki: The second time they ran into him, and he's serving their table, and they were like, didn't you just bring us our bags?
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Didn't we just talk?
Salina: So I thought that whole play on him doing those different things was cute.
Salina: It's something I've seen in other things before, and I don't know, I feel like that's a joke that always lands well.
Salina: But my sidebar today is actually on the person behind Claude.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: Who's?
Salina: Charles Pierce.
Salina: So he's not only this guy who's playing all these different roles throughout the ship, but then he winds up being, like we said, the entertainment, but he is a drag performer.
Salina: And so it just struck me did you have the feeling that?
Salina: I did?
Salina: Which, when he came out and he was like, I think he was dressed like Betty Davis, I went, this is not just a character that LBT wrote.
Salina: I was like, this guy is a legit.
Salina: So did that hit you in the same way?
Salina: Okay.
Salina: And because of that, it just kind of prompted me to do some digging.
Salina: So Claude was played by Charles Pierce, the self proclaimed male actress, but also known as a female impersonator, legendary drag performer, and my favorite, the master and mistress of surprise and disguise.
Nikki: Oh, my.
Salina: Yeah, you guys missed out on the hand gesture too.
Salina: That little thing worked up.
Salina: Anyways, so he actually didn't like being called a female impersonator and is quoted saying, I'm really just an actor who puts on certain costumes, generally gowns, to create female characters familiar to millions of people.
Salina: I mean, that definitely does get down to the brass tax of it, but sure.
Salina: I just thought that was interesting to have his perspective on how he saw himself and the art that he created.
Salina: He got his start as an organist and a radio announcer, but he kicks off his solo career in the he's using props to cross the gender line.
Salina: He adds the gowns in the he has a career that spanned 30 plus years.
Nikki: Wow.
Salina: He's best known for his impersonations of onscreen divas.
Salina: So, like, we saw Betty Davis here, but also Tallulah Bankhead, gloria Swanson, john Crawford and Mae West.
Salina: He passed away in 1999 at age 72 from cancers.
Salina: Cancers from cancer and complications of a stroke.
Salina: But when he was alive, celebrities like Lucelle Ball and Anthony Hopkins, sir Anthony Hopkins attended his shows and he performed all over the world.
Nikki: Really?
Salina: It's kind of neat because he's like, to me, the way it read, and I didn't read this specifically, so this is my take, is that he was an entertainer for the entertainers.
Nikki: Oh, that's cool.
Salina: I don't think there's a higher mark of honor than that.
Nikki: That's pretty cool.
Salina: Yeah, because if you are who they want to go see wow.
Salina: Right?
Salina: And I've got a Golden Girls connection for you.
Nikki: She loves Golden Girls.
Salina: So B.
Salina: Arthur became a very close friend of his, and she paid special tribute to him in her one woman show, B.
Salina: Arthur, which I feel like now we need to track down for you.
Nikki: We need to find the one woman show.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: So that is Claude or Charles Pierce.
Nikki: He was really entertaining.
Nikki: He was super funny in this episode.
Nikki: He just had so many funny one liners.
Salina: Is this a good time then to talk about the things that we does he fall I guess he falls into that category.
Nikki: He does.
Nikki: My second thing I like is Claude was super funny.
Salina: Absolutely.
Salina: Same thing.
Nikki: It was like you said it was cool to have him pop up in all these different places, but his one liners were hilarious.
Nikki: Like, there was something about the captain early on.
Nikki: I don't think I have this written down anywhere.
Salina: So Charlene says, I noticed the captain didn't greet us.
Salina: Is he sick or something?
Salina: And Claude goes, no, he's just drunk.
Salina: It's just the kind of person you want to be if you've ever been in the service industry, trust me.
Nikki: And you can tell, like, he was getting off on watching the drama unfold between the women and the men.
Nikki: And this is why he's on a cruise ship, because that drama was too much for him.
Nikki: He really liked it.
Salina: Right.
Salina: And he was on the way out, too.
Salina: After he said that, he's like, I've got to go get the rest of her things, talking about Suzanne.
Salina: And he was like, I know this one's going to be trouble.
Salina: He also stole Suzanne's wigs.
Nikki: Allegedly.
Salina: Allegedly.
Salina: But then wore them in the so.
Nikki: She thinks her name wasn't on them.
Salina: That's true.
Salina: Who knows?
Salina: Maybe she was just being a Karen again.
Nikki: She could have been.
Nikki: It's true.
Salina: Actually, my other thought there was I would love to see him do Julia.
Nikki: Oh, yeah.
Nikki: I bet he could do a great job.
Salina: Yeah, it would be an amazingly good time.
Salina: What else did you like?
Nikki: The whole episode?
Nikki: I thought it was the perfect amount of silliness.
Nikki: It was nonsense.
Nikki: It was a realistic storyline that they're designers, they really could go design a cruise ship.
Nikki: So it was realistic to me.
Nikki: And actually, Atlanta, I feel like, is sort of a cruise friendly area because we're just a couple hours, eight or 9 hours from some of the major cruise hubs.
Nikki: So it felt I don't know if she intended that, but I'm taking it that way, that it felt realistic.
Nikki: But then it just set them up for so many funny things to happen and for Mary Jo and Suzanne to have this bet, which.
Nikki: Was just so ridiculous but amazing.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: I loved when Mary Jo was like, she said something to Julia and was like, we something.
Nikki: And Julia's like, who's this we you're talking about?
Nikki: And she's like, I thought I was taking this one for the team.
Nikki: I thought we were all in this together.
Nikki: Julie's like, no, this is your nonsense, Bet.
Salina: I'm trying to work a pinky ring.
Salina: What was it?
Salina: An opal pinky ring.
Salina: Opal pink ted opal.
Nikki: Opal.
Salina: I have 17,000 questions.
Salina: Maybe she's mentioned this in some maybe that's, like, the only thing.
Salina: Because I know remember early on, she did a lot of notating about what Ted did and did not do during there.
Salina: She may have specifically mentioned that piece of jewelry.
Nikki: Oh, I don't remember it if she.
Salina: Did, either way, who's like, out.
Salina: And they're like, I mean, unless you guys have an Opal pinky ring, in which case I go, awesome, send us a picture of but like, who's like, I got to get my girl in this Opal pinky ring.
Nikki: But it was ted.
Nikki: Ted was like, I got to get myself in an Opal pinky ring.
Salina: Oh, it was Ted.
Salina: So maybe she got in the divorce.
Nikki: I think, or stole it from him.
Salina: Whatever the case is.
Nikki: But is it realistic?
Nikki: Suzanne wants an Opal pinky ring?
Salina: Exactly.
Nikki: Doesn't she have a drawer full?
Salina: Did it equate her tennis bracelet?
Nikki: Right.
Nikki: I don't think so, but I think that goes to show the difference between Suzanne and Mary Jo.
Salina: Right.
Nikki: She didn't want Mary Jo's sailor collar, so no offense, Mary Jo.
Salina: She couldn't have fit her horses in there.
Nikki: It's true.
Nikki: They wouldn't fit that stable.
Salina: So what else did you like?
Nikki: I liked Mary Jo and Suzanne coming together in the end.
Salina: Same.
Nikki: I thought the whole episode, watching them interact with one another, and we've seen this dynamic play out over some of season one, and I feel like maybe more in this season, but this constant tension of, like, men aren't all into you.
Nikki: Like, not everybody's looking at you.
Nikki: Mary Jo, to Suzanne, it just feels like sisters to me.
Nikki: They nitpicked each other.
Nikki: They one upped each other.
Nikki: It just felt like a very sisterly dynamic, and I just thought that was really funny when it turned sweet at the end.
Nikki: It did.
Salina: Because she finally she gives her the bracelet.
Salina: Yeah, because I think she's, like I think she respected her a little bit more.
Salina: Is it a reason to respect someone?
Salina: Because maybe you realize that Trevor obviously wanted to get with I mean, let's go with the fact that she respects the fact that Mary Jo told him to go fly a kite.
Salina: That's probably what it was, right?
Nikki: I think so.
Nikki: One I think it was because Claude was telling what some of what Mary Jo said, and it was like, that is Suzanne Sugar Baker.
Nikki: She is all these amazing things.
Nikki: I think that's the part she.
Salina: Suzanne.
Salina: Yes, suzanne.
Salina: But Dixie Carter.
Salina: Nope.
Salina: What's wrong with me?
Salina: I'll just go through the whole cast.
Salina: Delta Burke also has really good face work, I think.
Salina: Just coming back again to we are really dealing with four really bang up actors.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: Five.
Salina: Anthony.
Salina: I'm sorry.
Nikki: Where is never in the episode is.
Salina: That our just like her face work when Claude was going through so you saw her light up and she barely moved to her face.
Salina: It was like, mainly in her eyes.
Nikki: I genuinely believe she's never had really good female friends.
Nikki: She's touched on this a few times.
Nikki: Some of it's of her most probably most of it is of her own doing.
Nikki: But it makes me wonder, like, she's never had someone talk about her like that the way that Mary Jo did and take her side.
Nikki: So maybe I don't know, maybe she's really getting something she's never had.
Salina: So that was one of my favorite things, watching her go off on Trevor.
Salina: So I did write a little bit of this down.
Salina: She says, excuse me, but I don't.
Nikki: Like to have the back of my.
Salina: Neck kissed before breakfast.
Salina: She didn't have to say that, but okay.
Salina: I mean, by a stranger.
Nikki: This is why I moved my hair down, because I can't access my neck.
Salina: Good planning.
Salina: You're always planning.
Salina: Especially by somebody who is too dumb to appreciate a woman like Suzanne Sugarbaker.
Salina: Just who do you think that you're talking about?
Salina: This is no two bit singles cruise barnacle.
Salina: This is the Rolls Royce of females who happens to have more beauty titles than you have teeth.
Salina: And let me tell you something else.
Salina: I consider it an honor just to guard her brazier.
Salina: And I am not even a man.
Salina: So what are you saying here, yes or no?
Salina: I'm saying that one of us loves Suzanne, and I guess it's me.
Nikki: She really went in on that one.
Salina: She did.
Salina: And I thought it was great.
Salina: I thought her talking about gardener brazier.
Nikki: The use of the word brazier, this is another time.
Salina: I've also watched Annie potts in the moment as Mary Jo realize something as it's happening, like, in her oh, so it's like she realizes as it's coming out of her mouth.
Salina: D*** it.
Salina: I like this woman.
Nikki: I love her.
Nikki: She's my sister.
Salina: And it's just so funny.
Salina: So are we missing out on anything else that likes?
Nikki: Just one more thing on likes.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: The character of the guy with the pay jewelry and tan that was talking to Julia.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: I liked him.
Nikki: He had a line that I really liked.
Nikki: He said, let them laugh as I walk through the big surf of life.
Nikki: I like my tan.
Nikki: I like my toupee.
Nikki: And I know in here those are the two things they can never take away from me.
Nikki: I liked that.
Salina: Well, he had Trevor's number.
Nikki: Yes.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: I just feel like it was an insightful thing it was like one of those things that he was a silly character, and I still laughed at him because I'm a terrible person.
Nikki: But good for him for being himself.
Salina: Well, it's like he knew who he was and he was okay with it.
Salina: He's fine with it.
Salina: And he knew that people were laughing at him.
Nikki: He was in on the joke.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: I can't ever get on board with the men who have the shirt unbuttoned to the breastbone.
Nikki: It's too much with the hair, the hair stick.
Salina: There's always a chain in it.
Salina: It's a lot.
Nikki: So there's a lot about this man that did not personally appeal to me, but I appreciated hearing someone like that that's put there to be a joke.
Nikki: I just liked him saying, like, this is me.
Nikki: This is my life.
Nikki: Yeah, I liked him.
Nikki: That was my last thing I liked.
Nikki: I just had to get that one out because I really liked him.
Nikki: So where are we on what we didn't like in this episode?
Salina: Mine were fewer than likes, so that's good.
Salina: Mine's actually all related to the same thing, and it has I don't think it's anybody's fault, but CBS's.
Nikki: You're leaving me in suspense here.
Salina: The production value.
Salina: Oh, so bad.
Nikki: Like the window falling off the cruise ship.
Salina: I'm going to skip right past that.
Salina: I'm going to be really clear that the first time I watched the episode, I think I was multitasking, and I missed a little bit about the part that they were going on this cruise to look at it, so suddenly they're on the cruise, and I was like, they had a bingo night.
Nikki: What is happening?
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: And maybe that some of that.
Salina: I realize that what they are realizing on this cruise is maybe it's not the nicest cruise line, and I understand that, but in an episode where we finally get to leave Sugar Bakers again, it really kind of colored the experience for me.
Nikki: Oh, no.
Salina: That establishing shot, it was like, basically a drawing of a boat that they worked up real quickly when they just took a it was like a Kodak camera.
Nikki: Anybody draw in here?
Nikki: Come on.
Nikki: You draw a watercolor of a boat.
Salina: And when they open their room door on the cruise, I half expected to see parked cars the other side of.
Nikki: The railing, so you know what's so funny?
Nikki: Have you ever seen The Love Boat?
Salina: Yeah, but it's been like I was probably like seven.
Nikki: Well, I've never seen it, so let me start there.
Nikki: My question was going to be, is it like that?
Nikki: Because I'm wondering if this is like the 80s treatment of anything leaving the soundstage.
Salina: That's possible.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: So I think that's a fair point.
Salina: It could be, but I also feel like Designing Women just doesn't get a lot of love.
Nikki: No, they sure don't.
Nikki: It feels like doesn't get a lot.
Salina: We know.
Salina: They're repeating outfits.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: So it feels like they're really doing a lot with a little yeah.
Salina: And I really feel for them.
Salina: And I'm just saying, like, do better.
Nikki: CBS sure.
Nikki: Get Industrial Light and Magic in there.
Nikki: Get us a nice cruise ship model or something.
Salina: But that's it for me.
Nikki: Oh, well, that's good.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: I absolutely was like, man, mine was.
Nikki: Just that we didn't get any more Anthony.
Nikki: That little split second of him at the very beginning wasn't enough for me.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Why he's single unless he's still with Savannah?
Nikki: I haven't talked about that.
Salina: We don't know.
Salina: But he's picking up their crap all the time.
Salina: He's dropping crap off for them.
Salina: I'm not talking about his delivery job.
Salina: I'm just talking about all the errands that the man runs for them.
Salina: And it feels like, couldn't he go and relish in the Spoils of War?
Nikki: It feels like that.
Nikki: It sure does feel like that.
Nikki: So I hated that we didn't get more of him.
Nikki: I do wonder if there could only be so there's only so much room for the comedic, the comedy relief.
Nikki: And Claude was that and sort of the star of that.
Nikki: And so I wonder if Anthony's usually the one that cuts the tension or says the funny thing or does the funny thing.
Nikki: Maybe there just wasn't enough room.
Salina: That's a good point.
Nikki: Well, just made it up.
Nikki: I don't know.
Nikki: Well, we missed him.
Salina: We just both made up reasons for the things we didn't like.
Nikki: It's called podcasting.
Salina: How about we rate this sucker?
Nikki: Let's do it.
Salina: What'd you give it?
Nikki: So I originally gave it a four, but I upgraded to a 4.75 as we were talking.
Salina: Oh, my.
Nikki: Because the only criticism I had was there was no Anthony.
Nikki: So I'm giving it a 4.75 out of five drunk captains.
Salina: Very nice.
Salina: Well, I gave it a three and a half out of five.
Salina: I know.
Salina: I'm feeling bad about it now.
Salina: Let's just go ahead.
Nikki: I didn't like Claude.
Salina: Then 3.5.
Salina: We'll round that up to four.
Salina: But out of five brazier guardians.
Salina: I feel like we've probably covered everything.
Nikki: That was why nonsense.
Nikki: Like, it was just nonsense, but in the best way.
Nikki: Not like a super far fetched plotline.
Nikki: It felt reasonable, but it was also really funny.
Nikki: I liked it.
Nikki: It was light hearted.
Nikki: I've been missing this lately.
Salina: Twas.
Salina: Now, combination of either 80s Southern or unknown references.
Nikki: I'm going to level with you that my references section is quite skimpy in that I have none.
Nikki: So I think I've missed a thing or two.
Nikki: So why don't you take this part?
Salina: No problem.
Salina: Like on all of them?
Nikki: On all of them.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: All right.
Salina: Just move along.
Nikki: I think I was focused on other things.
Nikki: I have a very robust cut line section.
Nikki: I have a cookie delivery.
Salina: You ordered warm cookies and made tropical drinks.
Salina: You get by with whatever you uh so first of all, don't worry about.
Nikki: I still lose sleep over this tonight.
Salina: Maybe I miss Salina.
Salina: Well, maybe somebody's like I just wish that Salina would shut up with all the references.
Salina: So.
Salina: First for mine was John Collins.
Salina: This is the second time we've gotten a reference for her, and this is actually an 80s reference and an unknown reference to me because I felt like I had to look into it again.
Salina: Her name is always very familiar to me, and I actually sort of visually put her in the 80s, but I kind of forgot.
Nikki: She's Mommy dearest, right?
Salina: No, she's an English actress, author, and columnist, and she was best known for her role on Dynasty.
Nikki: Who's Mommy dearest.
Salina: That is Joan Crawford.
Salina: Yeah, one of the joans.
Salina: But I'm glad.
Nikki: I should have looked up Joan Collins.
Salina: Well, see, look, I'll probably just have gotten all the ones that you have wanted, so I also looked up Tammy Faye Baker.
Salina: I know who Tammy Faye Baker is.
Salina: It's just it's been a long time since all of that happened, and she's.
Nikki: Tammy Faye something else now, right?
Salina: I think she passed away well before she died.
Salina: She may have changed her name.
Salina: She may have lost the Baker.
Salina: She probably just went to Tammy Faye, and that's a good lead into why.
Salina: But she was a Christian evangelist.
Salina: Yep.
Salina: Evangelist.
Salina: There we go.
Salina: She was a Christian.
Salina: You can tell that I'm an evangelist evangelimista.
Salina: But anyway, so one of those and an entertainer.
Salina: She's best known for her husband's subsequent indictment, conviction and imprisonment for numerous counts of fraud and conspiracy in 1989.
Salina: So she is referenced by Claude in the episode.
Salina: He makes a joke about the amount of makeup that she wears.
Nikki: I feel like she came up in the Nashville episode, too.
Nikki: This sounds very familiar to me.
Salina: She may have.
Salina: She may so, but what I thought that was interesting, which is lesser known, at least to me, were her views that diverged from many of those that mainstream evangelists hold, particularly her advocacy for LGBTQ and reaching out to HIV AIDS patients at the height of the AIDS epidemic.
Salina: So we'll link to an article about that because I know time, but you guys might find that of interest.
Salina: 80s things.
Salina: I'll just go ahead and share my 80s thing barrel through Salina travelers checks.
Nikki: Feel like I want you to show me your notes so I can squeeze one in here and get credit for it.
Nikki: I do remember the travelers checks.
Nikki: That probably was supposed to be written.
Salina: Down in my world.
Salina: You already had it written down.
Salina: Southern things.
Salina: I had none.
Salina: Me, too, but I have a note that says there can't be anything Southern on the high seas.
Salina: I guess so.
Nikki: I don't know.
Salina: They weren't in the south anymore.
Nikki: They weren't?
Nikki: Well, they were deep south.
Salina: We don't really know where they were.
Nikki: No, that's true.
Salina: So the magical made up land.
Salina: We do, though.
Salina: They were in the studio parking lot.
Nikki: We know very clearly where they were.
Nikki: Right.
Salina: And then our last section is references to look up or things that we need to talk about.
Salina: Single cruises, singles cruises.
Salina: I honestly didn't know.
Salina: Was this still a thing?
Salina: So I looked it up, probably.
Nikki: Right.
Nikki: Yes, that's it.
Salina: They're still a thing.
Salina: I was just thinking it seemed like a lot of work when there's apps for that Tinder something you could go.
Nikki: Somewhere else, I guess, and get a little I don't know the word I'm thinking of, but I'm doing a head motion that would imply it's something sexual.
Nikki: But that's not what I meant.
Nikki: I just meant, like, get a little nice vacation out of it.
Nikki: I don't know.
Nikki: It sounds like my worst nightmare.
Salina: Absolutely.
Nikki: That sounds awful.
Nikki: Being trapped on a ship.
Nikki: Like the guy with the tan and the low collared shirt.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: People who are actively and looking for aggressively.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: No, but if you have been on.
Nikki: A singles cruise and enjoyed it, we'd love to hear from you because I want to know more about this.
Salina: Oh, yeah.
Salina: Cloud mentions or impersonates a number of famous actors.
Salina: So we already talked about Betty Davis, but while he's performing, he also impersonates Catherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy and I would just lump them all into the golden age of Hollywood.
Salina: So I don't know, it just feels like I don't want to say dated references.
Salina: I just want to say, like, it's so far out of what I feel like most people are familiar with today, especially if you're younger.
Salina: I don't know that anybody under our age knows who those people are because.
Nikki: It was as far back then to relevance as this show is to us now.
Nikki: Doing that math thing again where you realize this show is 30 years old.
Nikki: Those references would have been about 30 years old because we were in the those were, like 50s, maybe.
Nikki: Probably 50s.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Forty s fifty s sixty s.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: I just feel like a lot of people, all of our youngest listeners might be like, who are these people?
Nikki: You know what's weird?
Nikki: I don't know very much about Catherine Hepburn except who she is.
Nikki: But I knew that impersonation as soon as it was done.
Nikki: I was like, Catherine Hepburn?
Nikki: So weird.
Nikki: Yeah, it's so weird.
Nikki: You pick up things by osmosis, I guess.
Salina: And I like to think of it as just a 40s voice.
Nikki: That's probably true.
Nikki: We're really known for our impersonation.
Salina: I'm like, didn't everybody talk like that in the 40s?
Nikki: Hello.
Nikki: Hello.
Salina: I'll come in on that.
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: Right.
Salina: That's my talent.
Salina: That's it.
Nikki: Pretty voice.
Salina: All right.
Salina: And then he also mentions he does a Jack Benny impersonation, which I only know of because it says in the script, does Jack Benny impersonation?
Salina: Also a little out of my time period.
Salina: Jack Benny was an American entertainer.
Salina: He started in vaudeville, but he's best known for his comedic radio and TV show.
Salina: And the invitation quote seems to be a reference to the fact that the character that Benny portrayed in these different places was, like, kind of miserly.
Salina: And so I think it was a play on that because it's when Mary Jo asks, like, how much for this grapefruit?
Salina: Or something, like, uh, I don't think that's gonna be life changing for anyone.
Salina: But now you know.
Nikki: Now you know.
Salina: Cut lines I found.
Salina: Oh, wow.
Salina: Okay, so I'm trying to split these.
Nikki: Up and only mention the ones that are really important.
Nikki: Okay, so let me skip to my second one because we missed a loveboat reference.
Nikki: I asked about loveboat a little while ago, and I just feel like for a show that was in the 80s, early 90s, loveboat would have been relevant.
Nikki: So feels like they would have said something.
Nikki: Yeah, sorry.
Nikki: The reason we didn't get that reference is because it was at the beginning of the episode.
Nikki: Mary Jo says, that's why we're here, Suzanne, to fix it up.
Nikki: Someone says, and I think it was Anthony, so I think they cut some of Anthony's lines.
Nikki: I was trying to get down here earlier when we're talking about Anthony, but he says, that's right, and it's exciting, even if it's not The Love Boat.
Nikki: And then he pops the champagne cork and says, Love exciting and new.
Nikki: So there was a Love Boat reference, and it got cut.
Salina: Stop taking his lines, hulu.
Nikki: I'm telling you what I'm telling you.
Salina: I I only have five, so I'm missing one cut line.
Salina: But the only one that really stood out to me was a line from Trevor that they cut, where he basically promises that Mary Jo will get lucky.
Salina: And I think they should have kept that because I think it more clearly showed his intention, like the part that he plays with women on what he's looking for.
Salina: And when they cut that line, it kind of seemed like he was saying, ah, Suzanne's Vapid.
Salina: I'm not really into that.
Salina: Hey, you want to come back to my place?
Salina: But it's like they cut the hey, you want to come back to my place?
Nikki: Kind of line.
Salina: And that would have made it more clear, like, but I'm also not interested in you.
Salina: I'm just interested in getting in your pants.
Nikki: Right.
Salina: And I just felt like that would have colored in his character a little more.
Nikki: Agreed.
Nikki: We got a couple of mid sentence cuts.
Nikki: As the person who edits this podcast, I was like, wow, they did it right in the mid sentence.
Nikki: So I won't belabor them, except to say I was really impressed because I never would have known those were cut lines.
Salina: That's very impressive.
Nikki: And then there was one that made me laugh.
Nikki: It's random.
Nikki: It's not important.
Nikki: But after, like, comes down on Suzanne for staying out all night, and she's asking sort of where she's been, she says, yeah, we were worried sick.
Nikki: For all we knew, you were eaten by a shark.
Nikki: Someone says, and I'm pretty sure it was Mary Jo because she's really pissy at this point.
Nikki: She says, I never thought a shark ate you.
Nikki: I just thought that was so funny.
Salina: I think you may have caught another one I didn't catch.
Salina: Or maybe that's the one I missed.
Nikki: It was really tiny.
Nikki: I don't know.
Nikki: But it was just funny because she was just sort of like I wasn't super worried about you.
Nikki: Yeah, I just feel like it was a nail in the coffin for them for that part of the episode.
Nikki: So that's there are some other ones, but I won't go into them.
Nikki: So that's it.
Nikki: That's it.
Nikki: Next episode, episode nine.
Nikki: I'll be seeing you, but hang tight.
Nikki: For Extra Sugar, we're going to talk about cruise memories.
Nikki: You look like you have a thing you want to say.
Salina: Only that I realize I might have put in episode eight and messed you up.
Nikki: Realize that mid sentence and look at me.
Nikki: Show must go on.
Nikki: You know what I mean?
Salina: It must go on.
Salina: And that's why I like to stop it it, analyze it, talk about it.
Salina: That's really my role.
Salina: I'm the messer, nikki's the fixer.
Salina: And so you know what that means?
Nikki: It means we'd love everyone to follow along and engage with us on social media.
Nikki: We're on Instagram and Facebook at Sweettv.
Nikki: Email sweettvpodcast@gmail.com and our website WW.
Nikki: Sweettv.com.
Nikki: I'm guessing, Salina, you're going to pop in some references for your Salina sidebar.
Salina: I will pop in some references.
Nikki: So if anybody wants to come learn about what's his name?
Salina: Charles Pierce.
Nikki: Charles Pierce.
Nikki: Go to our website and now and.
Salina: You know what that means.
Nikki: What does it mean?
Salina: Salina, we'll see you around the bend.
Nikki: Welcome to this week's extra sugar.
Nikki: We're going to talk about cruises because this episode was all about cruises.
Nikki: The one you did the first time was better.
Nikki: I was really aiming for that first one.
Nikki: She did an excellent spot on cruise horn impersonation.
Salina: It sounded exactly like it.
Salina: The one you all didn't hear.
Nikki: So pretend that sounded like a cruise.
Salina: Shiphorn and not whatever that was 85 at 05:00.
Nikki: So we got that delightful episode about cruises.
Nikki: You've been on cruises?
Nikki: I've been on cruises.
Salina: Well, I've been on one cruise.
Nikki: Oh, just the one.
Nikki: Oh, I had no idea.
Salina: I'm getting kicked out of the extra sugar now.
Nikki: Interesting.
Nikki: So I thought we could share some of our favorite cruise, like memories, thoughts about cruises, whatever.
Nikki: Sure.
Nikki: Minor memories.
Nikki: I've actually been on when I think back on it, I've been on way more cruises than I think I knew.
Nikki: I didn't leave the country until I was like 22.
Nikki: I'd never left the country, so I'd never been on a cruise.
Nikki: Like, I didn't do a senior spring break trip.
Nikki: I didn't do college spring break, so I hadn't been on a cruise.
Nikki: In the time since Kyle and I got together, I've been on an inordinate number of cruises.
Salina: Well, how many is it?
Nikki: It's probably upwards of ten.
Salina: Wow.
Nikki: Which I feel like is a lot, right?
Salina: That's a lot.
Nikki: So my thing about cruises, you get a lot of bang for your buck.
Nikki: Like, you pay the one price, you get your hotel room.
Nikki: Basically, you pointed out in the episode it was weird the women were paying for food because usually on a cruise ship, you get access to unlimited food.
Salina: Of course, because they're trying to keep us from killing each other.
Nikki: Sure.
Salina: But whatever it comes with food.
Nikki: You get access to unlimited food, unlimited E.
Nikki: Coli, like all the stomach bugs you can need.
Nikki: And then you get entertainment.
Nikki: They do like, big Broadway style shows.
Nikki: There's so much to cruises.
Nikki: So on paper, it's checking boxes for me.
Salina: You don't have to move.
Salina: That's another good thing, right?
Salina: You go to places and all your stuff, it just stays there.
Nikki: It's just there.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: And someone comes in and they make your bed every night.
Nikki: They put some mints on the pillow.
Nikki: They clean your bathroom, I think.
Nikki: I don't remember.
Salina: They clean all the things.
Nikki: They do all the things.
Nikki: So it's been a couple of years since we've been on a cruise, but I am not a cruise person, as it turns out.
Nikki: I've been on all these cruises because it's the most bang for your buck.
Nikki: And we went on a lot when we needed the most bang for our buck.
Salina: Now, let me ask you something.
Salina: Can you have gone on ten cruises and call yourself not a cruise person?
Salina: I just wanted, like, does that can one do that?
Nikki: It's weird because as we're leading up to the cruise, I am like, jazzed about it.
Nikki: Like, I am ready to go because I love the Caribbean.
Nikki: We were talking about this a few minutes ago.
Nikki: I love the like, I just think it's beautiful.
Nikki: I love the way the water looks.
Nikki: I love swimming with sea turtles, like, all the things you can do.
Nikki: I've been snorkeling with Stingrays before.
Nikki: Do that crap in the Caribbean.
Nikki: So I love it all.
Nikki: I get really seasick.
Nikki: Really seasick.
Salina: Same.
Salina: So bad in the Caribbean, the stillest waters on Earth.
Nikki: Yep.
Nikki: It's so bad.
Salina: That's why I'd be scared to go anywhere.
Nikki: We went across the Atlantic on the Titanic.
Nikki: Do you imagine?
Salina: Well, that seems bad for a host of reasons.
Nikki: So many reasons.
Nikki: So anyway, yeah, when I'm leading into the cruise, I'm very excited about it.
Nikki: And then I get there and I'm very excited while I'm drinking.
Nikki: So I made us some Miami Vices today, which are strawberry daiquiri's on the bottom and pina coladas on the top.
Nikki: I'm drinking my first drink.
Nikki: I'm really into it.
Nikki: And then we take off and I start getting sick and I don't like it.
Nikki: So I've tried dramamine.
Nikki: I've tried the wristbands.
Nikki: The best success I had was the things behind your ear.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: The little patches, those really do help me.
Nikki: That said, having been on ten cruises ish I don't know.
Nikki: I don't really keep count.
Nikki: I have some good memories.
Salina: Well, I have some good memories.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: So I can share a couple of those today, but I'm going to stop and ask.
Nikki: You've only been on one.
Nikki: What's your opinion of cruises?
Salina: I think that they're a mix of good and bad.
Salina: I definitely agree with everything that you're saying about bang for your buck.
Salina: That's absolutely the truth.
Salina: So, yes, one cruise.
Salina: It was 2010, so it's been a really long time.
Salina: It was my graduation present after college from Casey.
Salina: We went to several islands, like five or six or something.
Nikki: So it was a long one.
Salina: It was long.
Salina: It was like ten days.
Nikki: Oh, nice.
Salina: So we covered a lot of ground.
Salina: I think the low point on that one was the fact that it was probably why we got even more bang for our buck, was it was hurricane season.
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: It was the most beautiful waters at the time.
Salina: So the first time I go snorkeling, I found a hair tie.
Nikki: Oh, no, it was probably mine.
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: But you know what I'm saying?
Salina: So it wasn't that picture you get where they're just, like, floating through all the underwater stuff oh, yeah, that sounds good, Salina.
Salina: Where they're in all the coral and the whatever.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: So all the tropical fish and everything, it was just like it was more like that point after something scary comes along, and all that's left is, like, water, dirt.
Nikki: Oh, that makes me so sad.
Salina: But still, we were after the storms, so it was actually nice outside.
Salina: At least we weren't, like, trapped inside the whole time or anything.
Salina: It was just a near miss.
Salina: So there was a lot I did like and I'll share those when we share memories and then there were just aspects of it where I was like, maybe we just didn't go at the right time.
Salina: Or for me, I think and I learned this about myself on this trip when we were on an excursion and more of like an excursion.
Salina: Not necessarily where we were just staying with everyone on the cruise, but where we got to go off and explore on our own and do that kind of thing.
Salina: I was like, oh, this is my kind of travel.
Salina: And so I like to go and see an area, and I like to see where people who live there live, and I like to do all of that.
Salina: And you don't always get that on a cruise.
Salina: And I think that's what was missing for me was that more like organic feeling instead of everything feeling like it's tailor made for you, right.
Salina: And you're not learning anything new or experiencing anything new.
Nikki: Right.
Salina: That was the.
Salina: Downside for me.
Salina: And I have to say, in this particular era, in a post COVID world, I'm just going to be really honest.
Salina: I don't know I'm ever going to.
Nikki: Be able to get back on one again.
Nikki: I think we've always been taking our lives into our own hands to do it.
Nikki: You're really just like there's so much about it that you're just like, I'm in a giant boat.
Nikki: I'm breathing the same air as all these people, just all those things.
Nikki: So I think that's one of the things about cruises that I'm just like, I don't know.
Salina: And the Norovirus was never even enough.
Salina: People might poop their brains out, and.
Nikki: They were like, you said there's lobster, right?
Nikki: Let me tell you, ten cruises sitting over here.
Nikki: And this is not a new thought to me.
Nikki: This is like every cruise we've ever been on, I think, god, are we getting at food poisoning?
Nikki: But they do have lobster tail that night, and they do have the volcano cakes, so maybe it's worth it.
Nikki: Yeah, it's just bang for your buck, and it's just an excellent way to travel.
Nikki: And there are cool things.
Nikki: Like, I had frog legs for the first time ever on a cruise ship.
Nikki: Which sounds like talking about food poisoning doesn't sound the greatest, but I have pushed myself to try.
Nikki: I've had escargo.
Nikki: I did not enjoy them.
Nikki: Had to send them away.
Salina: Really?
Nikki: Have I not told you this was not one of my I was not planning to share this memory when I was a kid.
Salina: You just in a happy memory when.
Nikki: I was a kid, like, I guess it would have been fifth to 6th grade, maybe, because I have clear memory of watching Umbop on MTV during the summer.
Nikki: So it must have been like fifth to 6th grade.
Nikki: My uncle in South Carolina would go frog gigging because he liked frog legs.
Salina: You say frog digging frog gigging.
Salina: Okay, I know even less going to hunt frogs.
Nikki: I don't know if there are arrows or something involved.
Nikki: What I can tell you is I woke up the next morning to go get my bowl of cereal, and what I found inside was a bowl of frog legs.
Salina: Okay?
Nikki: They were hanging over the edge of the bowl.
Nikki: I guess they were marinating or I just didn't seem like a good idea to have them at room temperature, but who am I?
Nikki: But anyway, so in my mind, that's what frog legs are.
Nikki: Then I go on this cruise ship, and I'm like, you know what?
Nikki: Trying new things.
Nikki: Going to do something different.
Nikki: And I do try to be an experimental eater.
Nikki: Sure, I try everything one time.
Nikki: And so on a cruise ship, you do get a very cool menu of things.
Nikki: You've not had escargot.
Nikki: I think for a certain group of people may be normal.
Nikki: Not normal in my childhood.
Nikki: Like, I didn't grow up eating escargot.
Nikki: So that's something they offer on the cruise ship.
Nikki: Frog legs.
Nikki: I saw them on the menu one night.
Nikki: My husband is a very he has very visceral reactions to food.
Nikki: So when they put it on the table, he went white.
Nikki: His face just was like, no can do.
Nikki: I saw them, and they were still kind of green, and I do not want to recognize my food.
Nikki: That's another thing about me.
Salina: They weren't fried.
Salina: No, I guess I think they were frog legs.
Nikki: It might have been a very light tempura batter, but I could still see the skin or something.
Nikki: I don't know what it was.
Nikki: I looked at it and I said, I am so sorry.
Nikki: I'm so sorry to do this.
Nikki: I can't even I had to send it back, because in my mind, I flashed back to that morning with the frog legs hanging over the bowl.
Salina: Yeah, well, I think anytime that you're expecting one thing and you get another, it's just like maybe it's going to ruin that whole whatever that thing was, it might be ruined for the rest of your day.
Salina: So for me, I did actually have them in the Caribbean.
Salina: Not on a cruise, but on our honeymoon.
Salina: I thought they were delicious.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: They're kind of greasy, no?
Salina: Well, it's been a little bit since the honeymoon.
Salina: I just remember being a little, like, having a little trepidation about the whole thing and then being like, oh, wow, these are good.
Salina: And they were spicy, because I see.
Nikki: If they Cajun Creole, they hadn't been recognizable.
Salina: I understand where you're coming from.
Nikki: And if they hadn't been green, but they had been flavored like that, I probably would have been okay with that.
Salina: Well, it'd be like if someone was like, okay, oh, you want chicken tonight?
Salina: Now what I need you to do is go pick your we're just that's not the world that we grew up in.
Nikki: It's just not.
Nikki: So, speaking of food and eating, I want to ask you, when you went on your cruise, was it shared dining experience at the dining hall, or was it just you and Casey at a table?
Salina: We had, like, if we didn't get moving fast enough, then we wouldn't have reservations, and maybe we had to go to some it was more of, like a buffet situation.
Salina: I think it's been a while now because you know how they seat you with a lot of people?
Nikki: Yes.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: After the first night that happened, I was like, we're not doing that again.
Salina: I think I've told you this story before.
Salina: Do you remember this?
Nikki: No.
Salina: We sit down casey has this he doesn't mean to do it, but if someone has an accent, he repeats it back to them.
Nikki: My stepdad does that.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: I didn't know other people did that.
Salina: No, it's a thing.
Salina: So we sit down with two British people, and they've obviously traveled a lot.
Salina: I'm 25.
Salina: I've been around the US.
Salina: A lot, but I haven't done a lot of international travel.
Salina: I mean, I know Casey had done some cruises, and he's been some places, and at the time, he had been more places than me, but not exactly what I would classify a world traveler.
Salina: And they say something, he was like and he had been on other cruises, but he was like, oh, yes, we love to cruise around the high seas.
Salina: I mean, obviously, I am not I mean, whatever.
Salina: It was like, speaking of turning the color of a sheet, I did too, but not from frog legs.
Nikki: I'm imagining Casey, like, his whole demeanor right now and trying to square that with this story, and I'm having so much trouble.
Nikki: This does not sound like him at all.
Salina: Because he looks serious.
Salina: Is that fair way to classify it?
Salina: Yeah, he looks like a real, and he's actually not.
Salina: He's just quiet.
Nikki: Yeah, he seems very reserved.
Salina: Yes, he's very reserved.
Salina: He's the opposite of me.
Salina: And I just was like, okay, we're eating a mole after this.
Salina: And we did.
Salina: He's going to hate this being on here anyways.
Salina: He didn't mean to.
Salina: He just was trying to connect.
Nikki: I think it's a thing.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: I'm so glad you told me this story, actually, because we tease my stepdad about it all the time.
Nikki: I did not know other people did it.
Salina: Okay, so we just got back from Ireland, and I was doing the same thing, too.
Nikki: Give me a paint.
Nikki: I was like, I don't have a.
Salina: Good you know, I'm looking at things.
Salina: I'm like, oh, that's like, not anything that is normally things that I would say have entered my vernacular.
Salina: You don't mean to I'm like, oh, it's 07:30.
Salina: No, I've never said that before in my life.
Salina: So that was just kind of a weird experience.
Salina: All back to the dining.
Nikki: So the reason I'm asking you this question is because one of my favorite cruise stories stems from the fact that you get assigned a table with other people.
Nikki: Cruise ships have changed now, and this is actually if this were still the same, I would not have been on as many cruises as I've been on because you literally get just put at a table with people.
Nikki: So, like, if you go on a cruise with your friends, I think you could petition the cruise line to put you at the same table.
Salina: Sure.
Nikki: But if you don't, they just seat you and you love table.
Nikki: I hate this.
Salina: Oh, okay.
Salina: This is my worst nightmare.
Nikki: Absolute nightmare.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: I didn't think that really sounded like you.
Nikki: No, this is what I'm saying.
Nikki: If this were still a thing, I wouldn't cruise amen.
Nikki: Now we can pick our like, we can tell them we want any my timing or something like that.
Nikki: And you just go and walk up.
Nikki: So at the time, our very first cruise, kyle and I went and we got seated at this table.
Nikki: Two other couples are at the table with us.
Nikki: I want to say one was from up north, and one was, like, Midwestern.
Nikki: You just immediately when you sit down at a table with people you don't know, you notice regional and cultural differences.
Nikki: Like, everybody's just a little different.
Nikki: One of the couples was probably about our age now, but Kyle and I were, like, 23 at the time, so they were significantly older than we were.
Nikki: Just a different stage in life.
Salina: It's like you're trying to knife me in the middle of the story.
Nikki: Well, the important part is the reason it's important is because they had older kids, and so they were on a cruise, like, away from their older kids.
Nikki: They were just enjoying their week away, just the two of them.
Nikki: I think if it was an anniversary, like a reconnection sort of trip, the other couple is a little older than us, but still young.
Nikki: Like, they had young kids, and in fact, the woman was pregnant.
Nikki: This was the most unlikely table of is not kyle can talk to anyone, but he does not talk to he it has to be a forced situation.
Nikki: So he was very unhappy that we had to talk to these people.
Nikki: I'm very awkward, and I didn't even know where to start, so I just stare at the menu on my plate most of the time.
Nikki: But it didn't matter that we weren't particularly sociable, because that one couple with the pregnant woman, that's part of the cruise ship entertainment.
Nikki: They were an entire sideshow unto themselves.
Salina: Talking to you all or just talking to each other?
Nikki: Talking to everyone at the table.
Nikki: Let me just say I'll cut to the end of the story first to say they asked for our email addresses at the end of the cruise because they wanted to stay in touch so we could go on a cruise again.
Salina: And that was your next nine cruises?
Nikki: That was the next nine cruises.
Nikki: These people are dear family friends now.
Nikki: No, we've never heard from them again.
Salina: And that was a couple that was just a little bit older than you?
Nikki: Yes.
Nikki: And she was pregnant.
Nikki: Keep in mind she was pregnant.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: A couple of fun things.
Nikki: One night at dinner, he ordered champagne, and they were also, I get the sense, maybe pretty religious.
Nikki: I'm not sure.
Nikki: They just said some things that made me think, like, maybe they're pretty religious.
Nikki: So he surprised us all by ordering champagne for himself because she's pregnant.
Nikki: He turned his back to watch a show or something.
Nikki: She picked up the glass of champagne, and she's like, six or seven months pregnant and takes a sip and looks at us and goes and throughout the night, she would do that.
Nikki: She would pick up the glass of champagne and take a drink.
Nikki: I could not care less, like, what you do, but it was she can have a glass super problematic that she only did it when he turned his back.
Salina: Right.
Salina: It was just telling you something about their relationship.
Nikki: Something uncomfortable was happening there.
Nikki: I was young, but reasonable enough to see, like, something weird's happening here.
Nikki: They go onto shore one day and they come back and this woman lifts her entire dress up.
Nikki: She is wearing a dress.
Nikki: She lifts her dress up at the dinner table to show us that she got a henna tattoo around her belly button.
Salina: That's nice.
Nikki: Her entire dress.
Nikki: And then, like the second to last day we were in Grand Cayman, their excursion for the day was to go do a Timeshare presentation because there was like free drinks and free food or.
Salina: Something more about the thing for your buck.
Nikki: This is wild.
Nikki: This whole thing was so crazy.
Nikki: The short version is he comes back and all I can remember him saying is he's telling this very convoluted story about them listening to the Timeshare presentation, them starting to think about the finances of it all and could they make this work.
Nikki: And I don't know.
Nikki: It's not really that bad.
Nikki: We get a whole place.
Nikki: We get to come 2 hours a year or whatever the ridiculous Timeshare offer is.
Nikki: Because, you know, it's never anything good.
Nikki: And just in hearing the presentation, they got like, free booze, some free there was like a steak involved, I feel like definitely liquor them up.
Nikki: There may have been a jet ski pass or something involved.
Nikki: There was like, a substantial reason for them to listen.
Nikki: Sure, I zoned out because all I did was tune back in when he said and as they were swiping my credit card and you could see, like, me and Kyle are both sitting there thinking that's my worst nightmare is to accidentally buy a Timeshare in the Caribbean.
Nikki: The couple next to us who is like, older and wiser than all of us, is just looking at this man pityingly.
Nikki: And they're like, you didn't give them your credit card.
Nikki: So, long story short, he gave them his credit card and signed up for a Timeshare he couldn't afford because he didn't want to tell him no.
Salina: Okay, but here, I'll make it better.
Nikki: You will?
Salina: You could have zoned out and looked up and Kyle could have been swiping his credit cards and you guys could be vacationing with them twice a year, every year.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: See?
Salina: So it's better.
Nikki: I think about those people probably more than is normal all these years later.
Nikki: That was probably 13 years ago.
Nikki: I think about them all the time.
Nikki: I wonder where they are now.
Salina: Well, we wish them well.
Nikki: We do.
Nikki: She was going to have a baby.
Salina: Even if she wasn't.
Nikki: Well, sure.
Salina: But especially either way, really.
Nikki: I hope their life held together after that.
Salina: So the food the food.
Salina: But you loved it other than the crab legs or what was your impression?
Nikki: I'm not sure that it's the most quality food, but there is quite a.
Salina: Bit of quantity, even in the dining.
Nikki: In the dining room.
Nikki: It's very good.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: Same experience.
Salina: So that was what I was excited about before going.
Salina: My in laws not in laws then, but soon to be in laws.
Salina: They know I love food, and I like to eat a lot of it.
Salina: And, I mean, I like quality and quantity.
Salina: I'll take what I can get, right?
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: But I didn't realize they had told me, like, oh, they do these midnight buffets and chocolate fountains and all this stuff, and I'm like, well, this is my dream come true.
Salina: I can just eat anytime I want out of those 24 hours in the day.
Salina: Just pop up and get something or order room service.
Nikki: You can order room service.
Salina: It's only, like, $3 for a ton of food.
Nikki: So we did when we went, it was free.
Salina: Oh, it's free?
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: I've never paid for room service on a cruise ship.
Salina: Maybe I should check that one with Casey.
Nikki: Maybe we did very cheap.
Nikki: I wouldn't have paid.
Salina: The only thing that we did pay to go to one of the fancy restaurants.
Nikki: Oh, did you?
Salina: That was an experience.
Salina: I wanted to say I think we paid $30 apiece, but I want to say that.
Salina: And I also am Frugal.
Salina: It's one of the best meals I've ever had in my entire life.
Salina: I bet you we had 16 courses.
Nikki: Or something oh, wow.
Salina: Where they were just bringing us out, like, almost like tapas situation, but it's the best sea bass I've ever had in my entire life.
Salina: I mean, I can still taste it.
Nikki: She's having a moment of reverence.
Salina: It was so good.
Salina: So that and the sit down dinners were good.
Salina: If it was a buffet situation, it was terrible.
Salina: And also, it made me very fearful of older women.
Nikki: The way they'll elbow you straight out of the way.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: The thing is especially I don't know if it's being Southern or just who I am or whatever, I have reverence for people who are older and in line.
Salina: Somewhere someone is saying this about me now, that's fine, but I mean, really older.
Salina: I mean, like, grandmother age.
Salina: But some of these ladies were just straight up rude, and I was just like, okay.
Salina: I was just, like, automatically trying to put as much space between us as possible because nothing was getting between them and whatever was laid out that day.
Nikki: I get that.
Nikki: That's me in the dessert bar.
Salina: I do understand that mentality, but my other senses kick in, and my sense is always to just let other people go first.
Salina: And I also like, at Buffets, I'd rather be up there by myself because I don't want to get like you.
Nikki: Don'T want to be rushed.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: I want to take my time.
Salina: I want to think about it.
Salina: I want to construct a good plate.
Nikki: I feel that on so many levels.
Nikki: And I will say, like going to the grocery store.
Nikki: I don't go to the grocery store anymore because people have that attitude.
Nikki: Like every store you go to now, I feel like I'm always getting cut off.
Nikki: It's probably on me because I'm like, you are where I'm like, oh, I'm so sorry, I'm in the way.
Nikki: And then I think about it and I'm like, I'm not in the way.
Salina: No, you're just existing.
Nikki: I just exist and I have to check in with myself.
Nikki: But I feel like a cruise ship amplifies.
Nikki: That because, like you said, lots of people, small space, and you just get the worst of humanity.
Nikki: So Princess Cruise lines change my mind.
Nikki: But the other thing, though, is cruise ships are awesome.
Nikki: In preparation for this segment, I went to just check cruise lines just to see what are they even up to these days.
Nikki: Sure, I can't keep up with whether they're allowed to sail or not.
Nikki: And there's one cruise ship going out of Orlando.
Nikki: I'm sure it's a Carnival Cruise because I've only been on one Royal Caribbean and all my others have been Carnival Cruises.
Nikki: And they have an at sea roller coaster.
Nikki: Oh, a roller coaster on the top deck.
Nikki: Disney Cruises are still I will go on a Disney Cruise at some point because I have heard it's like Disneyland at sea and amazing.
Nikki: So they have all kinds of cool stuff for the kids.
Nikki: So I will go on a cruise at some point, but it would have to be like the cruise ship would have to be awesome.
Salina: And you'll have to report back.
Nikki: I will.
Nikki: And I will tell you one more memory about a cruise that I wanted to mention.
Nikki: I told my parents I was pregnant for the first time on a cruise.
Nikki: We went for my mom's birthday.
Nikki: I found out I was pregnant in, I don't remember, early September.
Nikki: And then like two weeks later, we went for my mom's birthday on a cruise.
Nikki: And I knew my parents would have noticed if I weren't drinking.
Nikki: I'm not drunk under the table, but they would notice.
Nikki: I wasn't taking advantage of at sea drinks.
Nikki: I love stuff like this, the Miami Vice and stuff.
Nikki: They would have noticed.
Nikki: So I just knew we had to tell them.
Nikki: Incidentally, I also have the worst morning sickness in the beginning of a pregnancy.
Nikki: So I also knew between the morning sickness and the seasickness, they were doing it all, doing everything.
Nikki: So we went to dinner that first night and I had wrapped up some kids books, some board books or whatever, because it was my mom's birthday.
Nikki: I told her it was her birthday present and she opened it and stared at it for a minute, and then she squealed.
Nikki: And even though we were at our own table on a cruise ship, you're still like less than 12ft from the table next to you.
Nikki: So Kyle says that was the most embarrassing moment of my life, but also for a good reason.
Nikki: So he was mortified that everybody was staring at us for like, 2.5 seconds, because the sound my mom made, I've still never heard her make that sound again.
Nikki: She was so very excited.
Nikki: That was fun.
Salina: That's nice.
Salina: I'm like, well, I don't have anything sweet like that to say.
Salina: The other thing that I really liked on the cruise, I'll just have to say, like, bar none, the best late I've ever had.
Nikki: I do feel like I knew this.
Salina: I got a coffee card while I was on there.
Salina: Probably the only thing I ever told.
Nikki: You about the Caribbean.
Nikki: Probably.
Nikki: That sounds right.
Salina: And there was like, 30 coffees that came with it.
Salina: I tried my darndest.
Salina: I didn't make it to the end.
Salina: It was too hard.
Salina: I also think it is probably one of the reasons I gained probably ten pounds on that cruise.
Nikki: It's only one of many reasons.
Salina: I still took the stairs and worked out every day.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: And still at the end, I was like, Uhoh.
Salina: And that truly was the first reason that I was like, I don't think I can do this again, because I think it's, like, really unhealthy for.
Salina: It's pulling on my yeah, it was long, and then I feel like I should share one off the boat memory.
Salina: So we went to Grenada, and that was my favorite.
Salina: I loved it there.
Salina: We went Tubing in the river.
Nikki: Oh, wow.
Salina: And they were some of the most pristine waters I've ever seen in my entire life.
Salina: We were on the Spice Island, so that's what they're known as.
Salina: It's a spice isle.
Salina: And so I was able to get, like, a bunch of cool spices to take home.
Salina: It was another place where we actually got to see some of the hustle and bustle of where people lived, which I really enjoyed.
Salina: And then I liked that at the end we got to drink some tropical drinks on black sand beaches.
Salina: And that was the first and maybe the last black sand beach I've ever been on.
Salina: It's not the same as, say, a white sand beach because it's black, which I think is, like, typically what people are like, oh, looking for those white sand beaches.
Salina: But it was different, and I don't know, it felt like, so closer to the volcanic era or something.
Nikki: I think of a cruise as like, a sampler platter for that reason.
Nikki: Like, you're only at port.
Nikki: We stayed at port.
Nikki: I can remember one or two times where we stayed overnight.
Nikki: But usually you get there, you dock at 07:00 A.m., and the boat is leaving at 04:00 p.m..
Nikki: And I have seen people running for the boat and missing it.
Nikki: So it's there for a certain period of time, which means you have one excursion you get to do, but it can be anything from, like, if you go to Mexico, you can go to Chichinitza and see the millennia old pyramid or whatever.
Nikki: Or pyramid is not the right word, but whatever that is, I've never seen it because that sounds boring to me.
Nikki: But my parents went.
Nikki: They said it was wonderful.
Salina: I would like to go do that.
Nikki: Yeah, I've been within driving distance of it, like, four or five times.
Salina: Right.
Nikki: Never been there.
Salina: Couldn't get off that resort.
Nikki: I like snorkeling.
Nikki: I just like to be near the water.
Salina: Yeah, I mean, I have friends that, like, too, that will they will spend their entire vacation on the beach.
Salina: They get up in the morning, they go to the beach, they come back at night.
Salina: I just don't have the attention span for it.
Nikki: I get that.
Salina: I'm like I have the attention span for three hour podcasts and 12 hours.
Nikki: Worth of a show, but not laying on the beach.
Salina: Yeah, but not relaxing.
Salina: And that's what you need to know.
Salina: Well, is that it?
Salina: Are we going on a cruise?
Nikki: Did you book us one?
Nikki: I still have no clear answer.
Nikki: I think the one I found is sailing in March.
Nikki: Allegedly.
Nikki: But I will not be going unless Carnival is sponsoring it.
Nikki: So carnival hit me up.
Nikki: All right, those are our cruise memories.
Salina: How about cheers?
Nikki: Cheers to cruise memories and not being anywhere near the Caribbean.
Salina: All right, go eat some cookies.
Salina: And that's this week's edition of Extra Sugar.