u/TaniaBluebell

I’m standing up for a person who just deleted their post. A small percentage of people on this sub need to be kinder when people post vulnerable posts about food poisoning. Please stop trolling them. They are already suffering and some of you are mean spirited. I do appreciate the respectful comments from most of you.

Let’s have respectful dialogue. The haters are likely the annoying people at AI’s who ruin the experience for other guests.

Dating while being exclusive is such a confusing phase to be in. You are either dating or boyfriend/girlfriend. The exclusive phase got invented 15 years ago and needs to be stopped. It’s a form of non-commitment dressed up as something different.

I’m not a Taylor fan, but Olivia quickly forgiving Austen while demanding 12 apologies from Taylor is such a classic move. Why do guys always get a pass? Is it because Olivia still sees Austen as a prospect? Both Austen and Taylor failed Olivia but Taylor is being punished more harshly while Austen is sitting pretty.

Southern Charm | Season 9 | Ep 13

Kathryn is such a tragic character. I was a fan. She constantly fell for Thomas’s traps. She was so much more than a baby momma. She was too young to understand how manipulative he was. Especially when they hooked up again after the reunion and he promised to marry her and have a third baby. What a love-bomber.

Thomas loved playing Kathryn and Ashley against each other. He clearly is attracted to Kathryn. Ashley is jealous. Both women fail to realize he’s the ringmaster. Ashley is bonkers but he set her up a lot too, just like he did with Kathryn.

Kathryn seemed to go further downhill after this season. She is self destructive. I think from all the trauma she experienced at the hands of Thomas.

It was bittersweet to watch the flashback dinner scene with Kathryn and Thomas, her parents and grandma. A lot of people don’t understand grief and she lost her mom during this period too. I do not excuse her neglect of her children. She became reckless from the substance abuse and depression. Her boyfriend’s ex boyfriends shared some of the neglect they witnessed first hand. There was too much instability. It’s sad that Thomas has full custody. Kathryn ended up living up to the initial allegations they made against her. She should have protected herself and kids at all costs, but I don’t think she’s strong enough to take on Thomas and his lawyers on her own.

The picture attached is nothing to what it was like in real life.

100 people packed on a ghetto party boat is not luxurious. 10 minute snorkeling. Zero safety. Obnoxious people on boat. Slop buffet for lunch. Near physical fights over a folding chair during the slop lunch. No shoes on boat and forced to shared shoulder to shoulder seating with 100 people on a cramped boat. Dock boarding chaotic with 1000 people crammed in small space. Poor instruction on how to get on boat. People steal seats. People cut buffer line. Boat late for pickup.

Valentin, you let us down. You saved money by allowing your guests to eat slop and be stranded on a ghetto party boat for 10 hours. Meanwhile we could have you enjoyed breakfast, drinks and lunch at the resort. You won because you didn’t have to serve us or serve us food. What a scheme you advertised as luxury but in actuality it was to get us off the property.

Edit: to one of the haters in the comments section: we are millennials and Gen Z. We don’t enjoy the club scene. That’s why we chose the Valentin.

Amazon is featuring Southern Charm on their live stream right now. It’s the season when John Pringle joins.

I can’t believe he thought he had a chance with Madison. He didn’t look healthy and seemed to be on something.

His story is peculiar because suddenly Patricia and his sister were promoting him to eligible young women in Charleston. He’s hardly a catch and didn’t have his life in order. Especially moving to the east coast while leaving his sons on the west coast with his ex.

As someone who lived in the South during my 20s (originally from New York), I can appreciate the limited options that were available for suitable bachelors. Guys like John were promoted by people like Patricia just because he was single and ran in their circle. Successful young women were pressured to date guys like these because it was shameful to be single past age 25 (in Southern culture). He seemed to have delusional self importance. Likely because the women around him coddled him and told him he was special.

Stassi is a cautionary tale. She’s working so hard to redeem herself, but she fails to see that she had already achieved this outside of the show.

I think she had more success when she could filter herself through her books and podcast. She didn’t need a show to accomplish this. Her conversation with Katie was revealing. She seemed envious that Katie got to go out as a hero. Stassi was the star of that same show and is desperately trying to get that hero edit with her new show.

It’s a cautionary tale of “be careful what you wish for”. I don’t think she needed the show. Her ego or need to prove herself to the audience is having the opposite effect. It’s a reminder to not chase after people who don’t root for you. To stop pursuing or trying to fix something that no longer serves you.

In some aspects I’ve done similar things in my 30s: trying to right past wrongs. I should have left them alone and treated them as lessons. Instead, I tried to do a “do over” and suffered the consequences.

I like All Inclusive Adult Only resorts. Usually the ones that are roughly $800 per night. I feel I get a luxury experience and I don’t have to deal with screaming children. I also find activities to do on site and don’t do excursions.

For those that have stayed at a luxury hotel that is not AI, how does it compare. I’ve seen some posts recommending non-AI and the pricing is outside of my budget. It has to be less than 8k. Usually I’m able to find something 4k to 5k for five or six nights.

Do the people recommending the non-AI resorts just have a bigger budget than me? If I had their budget I’d probably try one of the hotels recommended. I don’t think those hotels are adults only though? For me that’s one of the reasons I go to AI, is because there’s plenty of adult only options. For the record I love children, just not on vacation.

Here are my top three AI Adult Only Resorts:

• Atelier Playa Mujeres
• Excellence Playa Mujeres
• Valentin Imperial Riveria Maya

Bonus resort for their hydra therapy pool that’s included in the rate:

• Joia Paraiso

Charlie- “I’m quasi sorry”

Perfect response to an absurd accusation from Brooks.

I grew up Christian and the church is filled with conmen and conwomen who use God to perpetuate fraud and coercion. There are so many 🐑 who enable it.

It upset me to see senior get a victim edit walking into prison with his Bible. Let’s focus on the reason he’s going to prison: fraud.

Cole should settle down and not have contempt for Galyna. The real villain is his father. Yet he has show much understanding for him. Unearned loyalty.

Cole needs a hard reality check on Galyna’s contributions. None of them could handle a day in her shoes. She makes it look easy because she’s efficient and hard working. I’m usually not a Galyna apologist, but no one can deny she’s a hard worker.

Senior is the one who put them in this position and now Galyna is being scapegoated for having a life outside of the business. Meanwhile Cole paid for a lavish engagement and Junior is showing off his new IG model, living large and skipping business meetings. What Galyna does on her own time is her business.

The sons needed to have a confrontation with each other and their father. Galyna should be lower on the list of “we need to impress our banks”. How about tell your farther to stop committing fraud. I haven’t heard them say that yet. Instead they makes excuses for him.

How lucky for senior, committing crimes while his kids and business partners have to clean up his mess, all while he’s being fawned over by his family and string of women. He’s a lucky guy to have so many people in his corner while he creates chaos and destruction to everyone who is in his orbit.

Riley grew up with all the privilege in the world. That can’t make up for her lack of confidence. She is insecure and blame shifts her bad behavior onto others. She instigates fights and then plays victim when people rightfully push back. She puts too much expectations on new friendships.

Ultimately, her unstable behavior pushes people away. She creates the toxic environment and then becomes insecure when people shy away from her. Instead of acknowledging her insecurity, she blame shifts and blames external forces on her situation. Until she sees that, she will consistently behave this way. Having a friend like her becomes unmanageable. She finds herself alone and then wonders why people don’t feel comfortable around her. Yet she continues to lead with the same insecurities in new friendships.

Why Galyna and Masha are chaotic. My take on why they behave poorly.

I know a little bit about Eastern Europeans, because I am one. I did NOT grow like these women, thankfully. I consider myself American, because I grew up here. My background gives me more insight into why these two women are so problematic.

My family is from Western Ukraine. We came to America as Christian refugees because being a Christian was not allowed in Communist USSR. For over 100 years communists terrorized its citizens. By the time my parents were college aged in the late 1970, things had improved a little for their generation compared to the atrocities my grandparents endured (ie kidnapped by nazis, imprisoned for 10 years for being Christian). For my parents, getting a higher education was not an option. The communist regime ensured Christians would not be educated. They made one of the entrance requirements a declaration that students had to sign that God didn’t exist. Communists didn’t believe in God and imposed their values on their people. Those that were willing to abandon their principles got bachelor degrees. Not my parents.

Just like the McBee’s don’t represent most farmers, these two Eastern European women don’t represent all of my people either. But they do represent a segment of them.

If you want to know why Galyna and Masha are so desperate and angry, you can thank communism. It’s a horrible system that creates an us vs them mentality. The classic divide and conquer. I’ve seen some growth in Galyna, but she still scares me. Masha is the typical Russian doll who is used to getting a man. She will scheme, manipulate, and lead with sex. All in the name of securing a man. Her betrayal of her friend is typical and not the exception. Masha’s delusional and thinks she deserves more than Galyna. She believes it is her right to step in and take what Galyna has. There are no boundaries because the entitlement is rooted in delusion. It all leads back to communism. She might have been a different person had she not had to essentially prostitute herself by becoming a mail order bride. Sadly this type of transactional thinking is formed in childhood. She doesn’t know any different. She has done this her entire life to survive. It’s not an excuse, but an explanation of why she is so ruthless. Things became a lot worse in Eastern Europe after communism fell. This is because they had to essentially start a free market economy from scratch. That takes years to do. Many people yearned for communism to return despite how disenfranchised they were from it. Masha seems younger and was likely born during this tumultuous economic period that lasted for decades.

I often see people asking for resort recommendations. Here are mine.

If you want to avoid sargassum, Playa Mujeres, north of Cancun, has limited to no sargassum. The best resorts here are Atelier and Excellence. I heard Beloved is good too but I have only been to the first two mentioned.

Atelier Playa Mujeres
Atelier has the best beach service I’ve ever experienced. The attendants make sure you have the best beach chairs and set you up with plenty of towels. At other resorts this type of treatment is reserved when you purchase a membership. Not at Atelier. The food here is the best I’ve had. The only thing I would change is having a larger property and central square with a band. The golf course takes up a lot of real estate at this resort. You don’t do much walking. This might be a bonus if you want to hide from the sun and go from your room to the pool with an umbrella with limited exposure to sun. The other perk of Atelier is the sky bar. It is amazing to be on a rooftop bar and overlooking the ocean. They also hire a telescope handler with a large telescope for stargazing. When we went summer 2025 there was a moon rising that evening. I couldn’t believe what I observed in the horizon and then it was elevated with the telescope. Atelier age range is 20s to 50s. I’m a millennial and used to an older crowd. Atelier at times had a party vibe based on some younger guests. For the most part, the guests were great and we met some great couples. At check in, be careful of the concierge assigned to you. They will try to sell you their membership. Continue to say no. Unless you are interested.

Excellence Playa Mujeres
This property is beautiful. Lots of day and evening activities. True luxury experience. It has à la carte breakfast and lunch restaurants with delicious options. Most importantly, it has a central square with a live band. The vocalists and musicians are exceptional. We often enjoyed the band before or after dinner. It was great to listen to good music, dance, and of course people watch. We also loved the pickleball tournament. We had not played previously played, but that didn’t matter. We did fairly well because of tennis experience. The bike tour in the morning was amazing. I don’t want to spoil any of it, but I promise you will enjoy it. Make sure you bring bug spray. This is the only time we experienced mosquitoes, because we left the property briefly. The restaurants here are amazing and we loved our room. We chose the most basic room which was luxurious. The airport transfer with a luxury SUV was included.

Valentin Imperial Riveria Maya
This is the most important resort to us. It is massive and you will love the walking. For dinner you can call a golf cart to drive you to restaurant. I enjoyed the beautiful walk home with what seemed like a fairy forest with the twinkling lights adorned on the path home to our room. Our room was Emerald. It’s ocean front and worth every cent. You can find deals sometimes for the Emerald room. The food here is amazing and the entertainment is exceptional. The fire show is the best I’ve seen. The staff are so nice and welcoming. This resort has a central square with a band that includes vocalists and musicians. It was nice listening to the band before and after dinner.

Lastly, please bring tips to thank the staff. You can order Pesos with your bank in small currency denominations. I usually factor in shuttle driver there and back, bellboy, maid for room, restaurants and staff that went above and beyond during activities or beach/pool service. I used to work in restaurants, so I’m partial to tipping. Totally understand that not everyone is like me.