Minecraft Realms Ping Fluctuates 30ms to 200ms

My friend's realms server is laggy sometimes. We both live in California and my internet is not a problem (1ms ping, 200mbps dl, 50mbps up). I started to realize the lag when my clicks aren't hitting the mobs instantly and that chests aren't opening that fast. So I downloaded a third party mod (5zigmod) to see my ping, mostly it is at 30ms or 8ms, worst is at 200-300ms. When it gets to 200-300ms, I start to lag. It's like our realms server is traveling on a plane and the ping keeps on changing. I never had that issue with a normal server and the ping is always the same. Our world is moderately big. I don't use a VPN or anything.

Is Realms having a hard time auto-detecting my location for the closest ping or server?

Thanks