People reports that Whelan, now 57, said she frequently sees her old castmate, who will fly out to visit for a weekend, spending time “cooking and just laughing and sharing stories all the time.”

“We should talk about our pal, who is a sister to all of us,” says the former child star. “She’s just a very genuine, sweet human being, and by the way, a spectacular actress. I mean, I even look back at The Love Boat episodes and I just marvel at her and her ability to move so effortlessly between doing a dramatic scene and comedy. But she is one of our favorite people and we adore her.”

Meanwhile Grandy touched on her dismissal from the show, saying she “has recovered magnificently” and that the “the circumstances of her departure were not so lovely.”

“This would’ve been the early ’80s, substance abuse on a set in those days was a punishable offense,” Grandy, 76, said. “It was not a healthcare problem, and it was not understood in the way it is understood now. And to some degree, she was a victim of circumstance at the time because the attention and care and therapy she should have gotten was meted out in the form of discipline.”