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Mediterranean 2028, Leg 3

An evening in Lisbon's old town, Seville from the sherry coast, the tiled churches of Porto, and thirty practice-changing papers—all aboard the Celebrity Eclipse

August 10 to 19, 2028

PsychUpdate Padrón Collection & PTSD

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

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Overview

CBT Canada is pleased to present Mediterranean Leg 3: nine nights, Barcelona round trip, August 10 to 19, 2028, aboard the Celebrity Eclipse. This is the leg that trades the Mediterranean for the Atlantic: south to Cadiz, the sherry coast's gateway to Seville, then up the Portuguese coast for a long day in Lisbon and a day on the Douro at Porto, returning by way of Malaga and Palma de Mallorca. Two countries, six ports, and this leg's own signature: a Lisbon call that runs to 8:00PM, long enough for dinner in the Alfama with the lights coming on before you sail.

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

• Concierge — from $7,256 CAD
• Standard Veranda — from $6,156 CAD
• Deluxe Inside — from $5,190 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 Padrón Collection with the PTSD module.

The Padrón 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.

PTSD completes the pairing. With a lifetime prevalence over 10% in women and 5% in men, PTSD is a tragically common condition. Fortunately, the DSM-5 "holy book" made it easier to diagnose, and recent research has delivered much simpler and more effective treatments.

The workshop begins with a review of psychological debriefing (interventions designed to prevent PTSD after a trauma), including insights from Dr. Dubord's work with the Canadian government's National Roundtable in Ottawa. We then cover a shortcut to the DSM-5-TR diagnosis, and the treatment tools that carry patients from post-traumatic stress to post-traumatic growth.

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 1 (Jul 22) features the Guajillo Collection with Personality Disorders, and Leg 2 (Aug 1) the Aji Collection with Functional Disorders. Compare all three legs.

Your itinerary

The CME will be held during our first two sea days, Friday, August 11 and Tuesday, August 15, from 9:00AM to 12:30PM each day: the PsychUpdate Padrón Collection on the first, PTSD on the second. Our third sea day, Thursday, August 17, 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 (Thursday, August 10) and our Farewell Party on Day 8 (Thursday, August 17), 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, and the airport is about twenty minutes away. If you are continuing from Leg 2, you are already at the pier, and turnaround day is yours. Board in the afternoon, find your veranda, and be on deck as the ship clears the breakwater and turns south, because this leg leaves the Mediterranean behind: ahead lie the Atlantic, the sherry coast, and Portugal.

Day 2. At sea (CME Day) CME from 9:00AM to 12:30PM, with the afternoon free as the ship runs the Spanish coast toward the Strait.

Day 3. Cadiz (Seville), Spain Ten hours in the oldest continuously inhabited city in western Europe: the Phoenicians founded Cadiz three thousand years ago, and it has been receiving ships ever since. The old town sits on a peninsula directly at the pier, so the golden-domed cathedral, the flower-filled plazas, and the Torre Tavira with its camera obscura are all a stroll away, and La Caleta beach bookends the seafront promenade. The classic excursion is Seville, about an hour and a half inland: the Alcázar, the world's largest Gothic cathedral, and the Giralda tower are worth the ride, though August asks Seville to be taken slowly and with water. The equally classic alternative is to stay put with fried fish, cold fino from nearby Jerez, and the pleasant knowledge that everyone on the Seville bus is hotter than you are.

Day 4. Lisbon, Portugal The signature call of this leg: eleven hours, 9:00AM to 8:00PM, which no ordinary port day can match. Morning in Belém, where Portugal launched the Age of Discovery: the Jerónimos Monastery and its carved cloisters, the Belém Tower, and a warm pastel de nata from the pastry shop that has guarded the recipe since 1837. Afternoon in the hills: ride the vintage tram 28 through the Alfama's tangle of lanes, climb to the castle of São Jorge, and collect the city's famous viewpoints one miradouro at a time. Then the part other itineraries never give you: evening. Dinner ashore as the lights come on, perhaps with fado drifting from an Alfama doorway, and back aboard for a sail-away down the Tagus at dusk, past the Belém Tower and under the great bridge as Lisbon glows behind you.

Day 5. Porto (Leixões), Portugal Ten hours in the city that gave port wine its name. From the harbour at Leixões it is a short ride into the centre, and Porto rewards it immediately: the Ribeira's stacked, tile-fronted houses along the Douro, the double-deck iron span of the Dom Luís I bridge, and, across the river in Vila Nova de Gaia, the port lodges themselves, where the Douro Valley's barrels have aged for three centuries and the tasting rooms pour everything from ruby to forty-year tawny. In the upper town: the azulejo-lined hall of São Bento station, the Clérigos tower, and Livraria Lello, arguably the world's most beautiful bookshop. Lunch is a francesinha if you are brave, grilled fish if you are wise. This is the Douro day the whole leg is named for; do not skip the tasting.

Day 6. At sea (CME Day) CME from 9:00AM to 12:30PM, followed by an Atlantic afternoon as the ship rounds Cape St. Vincent and turns back toward the Mediterranean.

Day 7. 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 8. 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 9. Palma de Mallorca, Spain Ten hours on the island the Spanish keep for themselves. La Seu, Palma's vast Gothic cathedral, rises straight from the waterfront lagoon and is one of Europe's great church interiors: Gaudí modernized it, and a local artist later wrapped a side chapel in swirling ceramic, so the building argues across seven centuries. The Almudaina palace next door and the old town's courtyarded mansions fill a slow morning; the circular Bellver Castle, in pines above the bay, supplies the panorama. For a different island entirely, the varnished-wood vintage train to Sóller rattles through the mountains to a valley of orange groves, and there is always the beach. Finish with an ensaimada and a caña on the Passeig del Born before the short ride back to the ship.

Day 10. Barcelona, Spain The round trip closes where it began, and disembarkation is unhurried. The ship docks early, but customs clearance typically wraps up around 7:30AM, and Celebrity advises against booking flights before noon. If Barcelona was a blur on embarkation day, claim it now: Park Güell's mosaic terraces in the morning light, Montjuïc's gardens and museums, or simply a long lunch in the Born before the flight home. The calendar is on your side: you are home on August 19 with summer to spare. And if nine nights were not enough, remember that Legs 1 and 2 sail before this one from this very pier; many of our registrants combine two, and a hardy few do all three. Ask Arlene.

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.