Can you believe I still have vacation stories?

I can, especially because I kept notes.

I’m nearly out of vacation stories.

In fact, this might be the last day of true vacation stories.

But let’s talk about bougieness, I guess.

I don’t know.

Your daily Lex.

So as you may recall from past episodes of this very podcast, when I go on an MSC cruise, we like to book rooms in the Yacht Club, which is their ship within a ship where you just get special treatment.

And honestly, you don’t pay that much.

Like, I’m not saying it’s cheap, but it’s very aggressively priced for the market.

And you get to board early.

So even though you get assigned a boarding time, you don’t need to listen to it.

As soon as the ship’s in port, once it’s clear, they let people on the ship.

If you have to wait at all to get onto the ship, you’re in a room where they’ll hook you up with champagne and cookies and whatnot.

And then you have a butler assigned to your cabin, and they help you out with anything.

So if you’re going to go to a show where everybody else has to reserve seats at the show—not reserve seats, reserve attendance of the show, because they can’t fit everybody on the boat in the shows—but the Yacht Club has a reserved section, and they’ll escort you to it.

You get a special restaurant that you get to go to, and you don’t have to choose a time to eat.

You just show up when you want to eat.

They’ll put whatever you want in your fridge in your room.

So I’m like, I want Diet Coke and light beer, and Lauren wants these weird peach teas, and we want seltzers and blah blah blah.

Special privileges.

One of the special privileges you get on MSC is you get unlimited access to the thermal spa.

The thermal spa is part of the spa where you can get your massages and whatnot.

I love whatnot.

And you get your saunas and your ice rooms and your steam rooms and all that stuff.

Regular attendees can pay for an hour slot or whatever in the thermal spa, but as being part of the Yacht Club, you just get to go for free.

And the reason I bring all this up is to brag.

No, the reason I bring all this up is I just edited out, edited out a massive coughing jag.

The reason I bring all this up is I’m amused by what happens when non-thermal spa experts like me go to the thermal spa, because everybody wants to look like they know what they’re doing.

And there’s not so much to do, right?

You get in the sauna, you sit in the sauna, right?

But, like, you also have your towel.

Do you push your towel down and sit on it?

Do you leave it folded?

Do you unfold it?

Do you use more than one towel?

There’s the thing where you can pour water on the heated element, the heated rocks.

When do you pour it?

How do you know when it’s time?

How much do you pour?

If you’re in the steam rooms, you know, they’ve got various spigots in various places.

Do you turn on the water and hose it down?

Are you hosing it down in the area where you’re going to sit, or do you hose down the floor, or do you just spray water?

Like, it’s funny because nobody really knows.

Nobody’s truly an expert, but everybody wants to project some aura of confidence.

I also absolutely hate if somebody walks into a sauna, decides it’s not for them, and leaves.

Or they’ve been in the sauna for a while and decide they’re done and they’re going to leave.

I’m supportive of those things, but then they don’t close the door.

Close the freaking door.

Close the goddamn door.

Or were you born in a sauna barn?

But seriously, it’s so offensive.

The salt room, I don’t believe in.

My wife and my friend John, they love the salt room, which is a room that has, you know, giant bricks of salt in there, and it’s supposed to help you with something or other.

But from everything I researched, it’s bologna.

But I like a sauna.

I like a good steam room.

And then I do go into the ice rooms too.

And it’s just funny because, like, when you’re in the ice room, there’s another place where people try to see if they know what they’re doing.

Like, I’m going to scoop up some of this snow and rub it on myself.

I did read on the thermal spas.

Signage that their recommendation is you first go into the sauna.

Then after 20 minutes there, you go into the ice room and rub snow on yourself.

And then you go into the steam rooms.

Okay, I actually did many of those things, and it was fun.

I only went to the thermal spa twice on the cruise, even though I love it.

And every time we go on an MSC cruise, I imagine what it would be like to open up a business here in New Jersey that was a thermal spa.

And I know of one other that does exist.

And I think it’s not a great business model if one of my goals is I can have access to a thermal spa.

That doesn’t seem like the greatest reason to do it.

But it feels like it could be a viable business, but that it wouldn’t be a cakewalk either.

The upfront costs are so high, right?

Because you got to get all the equipment.

Seems expensive.

Anyway, I hope you’re having a wonderful Monday.

My house is extra full right now.

I’ve got the five Freedmans, including me, and then two Scottish girls.

They were co-counselors of Sierra, who’s now home, and they’re staying here for a couple days while they explore the U.S.

before their flight home to Scotland.

What does it mean to explore the U.S.?

Today they went to all the places they really wanted to see: Target, Walmart, Trader Joe’s, a mall, etc.

Anyway, welcome to America.

Goodbye.

Lex.