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Mediterranean 2028, Leg 1

An overnight in Madeira, Tangier's medina, the Roman theatre at Cartagena, and thirty practice-changing papers aboard the Celebrity Eclipse

July 22 to August 1, 2028

Super earlybird tuition $1,495 CAD (tax-free)

Personality Disorders & PsychUpdate Guajillo Collection

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Overview

CBT Canada is pleased to present Mediterranean Leg 1: ten nights, Barcelona to Rome, July 22 to August 1, 2028, aboard the Celebrity Eclipse. This is the leg that leaves Europe: south along the Spanish coast to Cartagena, across the Strait to Tangier for a full day in Morocco, then out into the Atlantic to Funchal, Madeira, where the ship stays overnight, before returning by way of Malaga and Sardinia to finish at the doorstep of Rome. Four countries, two continents, and a genuinely rare itinerary feature: a night in port, with dinner ashore, in one of the Atlantic's loveliest harbours.

Staterooms are priced per couple (two guests), with a Classic drinks package, basic WiFi, and refundable deposit included:

• Concierge from $7,660 CAD
• Standard Veranda from $7,050 CAD
• Deluxe Inside from $6,380 CAD

The ship offers exclusive amenities for our group, including private meeting rooms, invitation-only cocktail parties, and special dining arrangements. For our group to enjoy these benefits, all bookings must be made with Arlene at vacation@cbt.ca (877.466.8228 x 333). Book now for the best cabin selection—and your companion cruises free!

See below for CME, itinerary, and ship details...

The CME

The mind is much of medicine

Mental health issues consume nearly a third of primary care. Furthermore, psychological expertise is crucial in nearly all patient encounters to optimize adherence and outcomes. On this leg the CME pairs the PsychUpdate Guajillo Collection with the Personality Disorders module.

The Guajillo Collection delivers thirty brand-new papers, never taught before, with practice-changing tools from the latest research across the key areas in mental health.

Unlike CBT Canada's core modules, which provide tools customized for over a dozen distinct clinical areas, PsychUpdates offer you a broad and brisk experience. Each review draws at least one paper with practical implications from each of the following clinical domains:

Five criteria guide the selection of the thirty papers underpinning each PsychUpdate: 1) recent; 2) high-quality; 3) clinically useful; 4) personally useful; and 5) spicy (i.e., interesting). PsychUpdates move at a brisk pace to keep things very engaging. Each collection explores novel areas to broaden your professional and personal expertise.

Personality Disorders completes the pairing. DSM-5-TR puts the prevalence at roughly 15% of your patients, and higher still among the illness-anxious: 75% of hypochondriacs have at least one personality disorder, and nearly half have three or more. And as you know all too well, personality disorders aren't confined to patients. Colleagues, family members, and friends can also generate some rather profound suffering. You'll leave with practical tools for reading and managing personalities: manage them before they manage you.

The workshop opens with the science of personality assessment, including a chance to analyze yourself (and your loved ones, if you're so inclined) with one of the genuinely evidence-based inventories. The core is a systematic tour of DSM-5's ten personality disorders, with three emphases throughout: rapid diagnosis when possible, modular treatments when desired, and clinician coping always.

Your instructor for both is Greg Dubord, MD, CBT Canada's CME Director and a University of Toronto CME Teacher of the Year.

Sailing more than one leg? Each leg carries its own distinct collection and module, with no overlap: Leg 2 (Aug 1) features the Aji Collection with Functional Disorders, and Leg 3 (Aug 10) the Padrón Collection with PTSD. Compare all three legs.

Your itinerary

The CME will be held during our first two sea days, Tuesday, July 25 and Friday, July 28, from 9:00AM to 12:30PM each day: the PsychUpdate Guajillo Collection on the first, Personality Disorders on the second. Our third sea day, Sunday, July 30, is entirely yours. The format is fast-paced and interactive, with the kind of lively discussion that only happens when physicians are relaxed and away from the office. The teaching assumes ten-minute appointments in the real world.

 

Social gatherings include our Welcome Party on Day 1 (Saturday, July 22) and our Farewell Party on Day 9 (Sunday, July 30), both from 5:00PM to 6:00PM. All registrants and their guests of all ages are welcome. We also host informal gatherings most evenings at Cellar Masters, the ship's wine bar.

Port details

Day 1. Barcelona, Spain Your voyage begins in Gaudí's city, and if you can, arrive a day or two early: the Sagrada Família, the Gothic Quarter, and the food halls of La Boqueria deserve unhurried hours, not a pre-boarding sprint. Cruise ships berth at the Adossat terminals, a short hop from the foot of La Rambla (the T3 Cruise Bus runs every few minutes; taxis are plentiful), and the airport is about twenty minutes away. Board in the afternoon, find your veranda, and be on deck as the ship clears the breakwater: the city recedes behind you with Montjuïc on one side and, somewhere ahead, the coast of Africa.

Day 2. Cartagena, Spain Cartagena is the shortest call of the voyage, a compact seven hours, and the town obliges by putting everything at the pier's edge. You step off the ship and walk five minutes into the old town; the magnificent Roman Theatre, rediscovered under the city in 1988, sits barely four hundred metres from your gangway. This was one of Rome's great naval ports, and later Spain's, and the layers show: Carthaginian walls, Roman columns, Art Nouveau facades from the mining boom, and a harbourfront promenade built for exactly the stroll you are about to take. See the theatre and its museum, climb to the Concepción Castle for the harbour view, and be back aboard for a late lunch without ever having boarded a bus. Some ports make you work. This one does not.

Day 3. Tangier, Morocco Eleven hours in Africa: the most generous call of the voyage, and it earns the time. Tangier has been the crossroads of two continents for three thousand years, and its medina remains gloriously ungentrified: a fifteen-minute walk from the ship (uphill in places, or a petit taxi for pocket change) delivers you to the Grand Socco and a labyrinth of alleys, spice stalls, and doorways painted every blue the Atlantic can produce. Climb to the kasbah for the view across the Strait of Gibraltar, visit the American Legation (the first American public property abroad, and a small gem), then take mint tea at Café Hafa, the cliffside terrace where Paul Bowles and the Rolling Stones once idled. With a full day, Cap Spartel and the Caves of Hercules, where the Mediterranean formally meets the Atlantic, are an easy excursion. Two continents in one vacation is the kind of thing worth being able to say.

Day 4. At sea (CME Day) CME from 9:00AM to 12:30PM, with the afternoon free for ship activities and relaxation.

Days 5 & 6. Funchal, Madeira (overnight in port) Here is the crown jewel of the itinerary: the ship docks Wednesday morning and does not leave until Thursday at 5:00PM, which means an evening ashore, an unhurried dinner, and a second full day, a luxury almost no Mediterranean itinerary offers. Madeira is an Atlantic island of levada walks, black-scree cliffs, and gardens that Victorian botanists spent fortunes assembling. Day one: ride the cable car up to Monte, then descend the traditional way, in a wicker toboggan steered by two men in straw hats (genuinely; it has worked since 1850). Browse the Mercado dos Lavradores, and finish with a tasting at Blandy's, where Madeira wine has been aged since Napoleon's era. In the evening, the Zona Velha's painted doors and grill restaurants are a fifteen-minute waterfront stroll from the gangway. Day two: a levada walk along the island's famous irrigation channels, the glass skywalk at Cabo Girão (one of Europe's highest sea cliffs), or simply a garden and a long lunch. One practical note: Madeira keeps a clock one hour behind mainland Spain, and the ship stays on ship's time, so trust the daily program over your phone.

Day 7. At sea (CME Day) CME from 9:00AM to 12:30PM, followed by an afternoon in the Atlantic as the ship turns back toward Spain.

Day 8. Malaga, Spain Malaga has quietly become one of Spain's best city breaks, and the port delivers you almost into it: a pleasant twenty-minute walk along the palm-lined Muelle Uno, or a shuttle to the Plaza de la Marina, and you are in the old town. The Alcazaba, a Moorish palace-fortress in remarkable condition, climbs the hill directly above the Roman theatre at its feet; continue up to the Gibralfaro castle for the classic panorama of bullring, harbour, and sea. Picasso was born here, and the Picasso Museum occupies a sixteenth-century palace ten minutes' walk away. Between monuments: tapas. Malaga's specialty is espetos, sardines grilled on cane skewers over open fires along Malagueta beach, best eaten with your feet nearly in the sand.

Day 9. At sea A full sea day with no CME: the ship is yours, from the Lawn Club to the pools. Our Farewell Party runs from 5:00PM to 6:00PM.

Day 10. Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy An efficient morning call, eight hours, and Cagliari suits it: the town rises straight from the harbour, a ten-minute walk to the Piazza Matteotti, so no time is lost in transit. The medieval Castello quarter crowns the hill, reached by steep cobbled lanes (wear real shoes) or a public lift, and rewards the climb with the Bastione di Saint Remy's sweeping terrace over the Gulf of Angels. The Roman amphitheatre, carved directly into the hillside rock, is nearby. If you would rather spend Sardinia horizontally, Poetto beach, several kilometres of white sand, is a short taxi ride away. Be back aboard mid-afternoon; the evening is for the Lawn Club as the ship makes for Rome.

Day 11. Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy Disembarkation is unhurried. The ship docks early, but customs clearance typically wraps up around 7:30AM, and Celebrity advises against booking flights before noon. Civitavecchia has been Rome's seaport since the Emperor Trajan built it, and Rome is under an hour away by frequent train, which suggests the obvious move: do not fly home the same morning. Add two or three nights in Rome, or continue as many of our registrants do, since Leg 2 departs from this very pier the same day, bound back to Barcelona by way of Amalfi, the Riviera, and two full days at La Spezia. Ask Arlene about combining legs.

No shirt, no shoes, no CME—but off-hours are all yours. The CMPA calls physician well-being “the missing quality of care indicator” because it so powerfully predicts patient outcomes. Physician, recharge yourself!

Your ship: Celebrity Eclipse

Half an acre of real grass, and a veranda you can actually sit on

The Eclipse is not the newest ship in Celebrity's fleet, and we chose her anyway. We chose her for where she goes. The newest hulls mostly run the same well-worn loops out of Rome and Athens. The Eclipse is the ship that gets to Tangier, and to an overnight in Madeira, and stays two full days at La Spezia so you are not forced to pick between Florence and the Cinque Terre. Solstice-class ships are named after astronomical phenomena. This one is named for a total solar eclipse, which we consider a good omen.

One thing worth knowing if you have sailed a newer Celebrity ship. The Edge-class hulls replaced the balcony with an Infinite Veranda: a window that slides partway down, with the space folded into the cabin. Some people like it. Many do not, because you cannot really sit outside. The Eclipse has proper verandas with a door, a railing and a deck chair, on eighty-five percent of her staterooms. On a Mediterranean crossing at breakfast, that turns out to matter.

Her signature is The Lawn Club: half an acre of real, living grass on the top deck, tended by an actual full-time lawn keeper, where you can play bocce or croquet or simply lie down on it somewhere north of Madeira. No newer Celebrity ship has this. Below it sits the adults-only Solarium, the AquaSpa, and a Grand Foyer built around a full-height tree with glass elevators running up through it.

She has been kept up. A full stateroom overhaul in 2021, then a three-week drydock in April 2025 that brought new carpets and furnishings throughout and rebuilt The Retreat Lounge for suite guests. If you are looking at suites, ask Arlene about the Sky and Celebrity Suites—both can be held across all three sailings, so families sailing more than one leg never change cabins.

Ten restaurants and food venues, including Le Petit Chef, Tuscan Grille, and Blu for AquaClass guests, plus a five-course menu from Celebrity's culinary ambassador Daniel Boulud. She also sails with Starlink, which is a bigger deal than it sounds. It means video calls home that actually hold, streaming in the evening, photos uploaded the same day, and a clinic you can check in on from the middle of the Atlantic if you must. Whether you tell your inbox where you are remains your business.

Traveling solo? If the cruise line's “single supplement” is deterring you, Arlene may be able to help. Call (877) 466-8228 x 333 or email vacation@cbt.ca for details.

Meet your instructor

Greg Dubord

Greg Dubord, MD is the CME Director of CBT Canada, and the prime developer of medical CBT. He has presented over 500 workshops, including over 50 for the CFPC, and is a University of Toronto CME Teacher of the Year. Dr. Dubord completed his CBT training under the founder, Dr. Aaron T. Beck. He has taught in all Canadian provinces and territories, and in over a dozen countries.

About CBT Canada

CBT Canada won the National CME Program Award from the CFPC for providing “exceptional learning experiences”, and was the first organization authorized by the CFPC to provide three-credits-per-hour CME. One accreditation reviewer wrote, “Two words: superlative & exemplary”.

CBT Canada has given over 100 workshops in collaboration with medical schools, including Dal, McGill, McMaster, Memorial, Queen's, UofA, UBC, UofC, Université de Montréal, UofS, the University of Toronto, and Western.

Over 10,000 physicians have been trained by CBT Canada over the past 30 years. Alumni include national and provincial CFPC presidents, department chairs, residency program directors—and even a few doctors who are comfortable juggling drills & saws. Read their endorsements.

The Procrastinator's Penalty

A Tardy Chief

Preferred-rate cabins on first-class ships sailing the Mediterranean deservedly sell out long in advance. Unfortunately, some doctors share traits with mere mortals, including the tendency to procrastinate. Regrettably, even the most strident cries of “Do you know who I am?” cannot secure the Chief of Staff (or the orthopod, or any other Minor Deity) the best flights and a prime cabin at a procrastinator’s preferred pace. You owe it to yourself and your family to book early. How early? Those who take their vacations seriously—and have learned the cost of rumination—snap up the prime options as soon as they’ve slept on it. That’s just how it is. Book today.