Announcing our Marriage Cruise!

How would you like to come on a cruise with us? Registration and bookings for The Marriage Cruise for Smart Couples have just opened!

The Marriage Cruise for Smart Couples is a premium marriage retreat, on a deluxe cruise ship, sailing around the Western Caribbean. Ah! What more could one ask for!?

(Yes, that is a picture of the actual ship above!!)

Transform Your Marriage

Caleb has some amazing, transformational content laid out for the 8 days we’ll be on the Celebrity Silhouette: so be prepared to have your life changed! He really dug deep and designed this research-based program so that what you learn can be taken home to be a blessing to your marriage for years to come. So this is not just meant to be a flash-in-the-pan experience, but something that is truly transformational.

The beauty of this whole retreat is that the cruise ship really takes care of us while we can take care of our marriages. It is an awesome opportunity to step out of the daily grind, take a break from winter, and enjoy a time of relaxation, renewal, romance and creating life-long memories for each couple that joins us.

Memories for a Lifetime

I want people to look back on this cruise and say, That was a turning point for us. Or, even if your marriage is already pretty good or even if it is awesome, just to be like, wow, going on The Marriage Cruise for Smart Couples really helped us take it to the next level. Who knew there was more? And yet there is, right!?

Yeah even for us we enjoy our marriage and we know how all this works. But we hit plateaus too, and then usually when you do something out of the ordinary, wow, it’s like a whole new level of enjoyment and intimacy and joyfulness together.

Once again, we have gathered all the details in one place here: Marriage Cruise for Smart Couples.

Marriage Cruise Overview

The cruise leaves February 18 2018 from Florida, right after Valentine’s Day. We’ll be aboard the Celebrity Silhoutte for 8 days and 7 nights. So it leaves Sunday afternoon and returns the next Sunday morning. The cruise departs from Fort Lauderdale, FL, and goes either to Jamaica or Key West for the first stop (that’s to be determined based on how reconstruction goes at Key West). Also the cruise is in the Western Caribbean so these are beautiful spots that were not damaged by the devastating hurricane season this year. After Key West we have one day at sea, then into Costa Maya Mexico, Cozumel, Mexico, George Town Grand Cayman, another day at sea and then home.

As far as the seminars go we have this amazing venue aboard the ship, floor to ceiling windows on an upper deck overlooking the ocean, and we plan to have a welcome reception and registration with hors d’oeuvres the first evening and then, every morning in port we have a session earlier in the morning for just one hour so you can get off the ship and enjoy excursions at each location. For the two sea days, each day will have two 90 minute sessions so we can really maximize the value of that time.

We really designed this so it is about positive transformation. We’re giving you skills that you can use now and in the future, and helping you understand how to create the marriage you want to have. We have some great material on sex and intimacy, communication, creation deeper connection, designing a marriage that creates legacy. And this is all down-to-earth, actionable stuff, not pie in the sky. The resources and training material and exercises and experiential work is all evidence-based: in other words, it works.

Marriage Retreat Aboard the Silhouette

Here’s a quick overview.

Welcome Reception (Sunday, 5 PM aboard the Silhouette)

Session 1: Shortwave Radio Lessons (Monday Morning – Key West, FL)

Purpose: To truly hear and be heard without misunderstandings or unnecessary conflict.
Duration: 60 minutes
We are going to have some great laughs in this one, but I will be teaching you how to use active listening to really, really send that signal to your spouse that you are fully tracking with his or her comments. And it’s not just teach it and forget it, I’ll have you guys turn and face each other, kind of knees-to-knees, and practice and make this work as Verlynda and I walk around and coach you on this. So you’ll learn, practice, learn, practice and this really sets the foundation for the work you’ll be doing all week.
Then you’ll hop off the boat if you like and go grab some awesome Key Lime Pie. Oh, and by the way, we’ve been to Key West. There is only one place to get key lime pie in Key West and you are welcome to follow us over there.

Session 2: Your Own Love Boat (Tuesday Morning 90 min – At Sea)

Purpose: To reignite or refuel warmth in your marriage.
Duration: 90 minutes
This is our first longer session and the point is to take a step back from day-to-day issues that sometimes we get stuck in as couples. You’ll be working with your spouse to remember and those precious aspects of one another’s character and worth that drew you together and keeps you together. You know when I start therapy with couples sometimes I ask the question, “What’s the glue that keeps you guys together” and the happy tears often flow at that point. Sometimes with raising kids or financial stress or work problems we forget the beauty in one another.
An experience like this is a great opportunity to step back and allow yourself to drink in and accept words of appreciation and honour and affection from your spouse. This is a huge rekindling experience, a remembering, a reigniting, a returning to the foundation. Beautiful stuff.

Session 3: Sex Ed for Experienced Couples (Tuesday Afternoon 90 min – At Sea)

Purpose: To learn to talk in a safe, caring, effective way about the most intimate part of your marriage.
Duration: 90 minutes
Well, you get married for a while and you get into a sexual rut. So we’re going to do some sex ed. It just seems like a lot of us especially from Christian backgrounds we don’t get a lot of detailed sex ed. Usually, it’s happening when you don’t need it and then when you do it’s too awkward to ask about.
So I’m sure we’ll have some great laughs here too but just talking about sexual norms, the wonder of what’s going on in your bodies as you make love, how to talk about that with each other, to kind of train or educate each other on what works and what doesn’t. We’ll help you make those discussions happen in a safe, caring manner.
And then there’ll be homework — which is nobody else’s business but yours! 😉

Session 4: Your Safe Harbor (Wednesday Morning – Costa Maya, MX)

Purpose: To set you up for deeper connection and support around life’s challenges
Duration: 60 minutes
So the next morning because you’ll all be feeling those warm fuzzies from the appreciation work the previous morning and the sex ed the previous night, we are figuring you will be showing up a little sleep deprived from the short night (wink, wink and all that) and so we want to talk about how you can make your marriage a safe harbour. This a little less intense of a session, but it’s really practical because couples often don’t know how to set up their marriage so it’s a place for stress to be relieved rather than a place for stress to be vented. That’s a such a rich thing when you get it set up the right way so we’ll show you how to do that.

Session 5: Who’s the Captain, Anyways? (Thursday Morning – Cozumel, MX)

Purpose: To learn about power, influence and cooperation in your marriage
Duration: 60 minutes
This is one is fun. Cozumel Mexico is actually an island, a beautiful island. We’re going to do an exercise in the conference room called the Island Survival Exercise and we’re going to use to learn about how you as a couple can extend inclusion to one another, accept influence, have stronger teamwork (a sense of ‘us’) and share power in your marriage. This is a fun-filled team-building exercise between the two of you that, again, will set you up for more effectively navigating the day to challenges of life when you get home.

Session 6: Navigating Out of the Storm (Friday Morning – George Town, Grand Cayman)

Purpose: To transform the way you interact around your most common areas of conflict
Duration: 60 minutes
Now, this might be your biggest “Aha” moment. We are going to do an exercise that I normally only do with couples in counselling but it is a brilliant way to learn how and why you get stuck on certain issues. And, when you do, what is really going on deep inside yourself and your spouse. Equipped with this knowledge, I’ll reveal how you can transform those interactions into marriage-building moments rather than marriage-destroying events.

Session 7: Sailing Off Into the Sunset (Saturday Morning – At Sea)

Purpose: To discover and build a plan for how to lead your lives and marriage toward creating a legacy.
Duration: 90 minutes
So we are back on a sea day now and we need a little more time for this one. You’ll do an exercise, together, where you map out your life as it was before the cruise. Then, you will make it out how you would like it to look after the cruise. And working together, you’ll come up with a plan for changing those most important areas. So this is the part where we really start to set you up for life back home — remember how I said I don’t want this to be a flash in the pan, and Monday comes and it’s all just like it was before, well being intentional about changing that starts in this session and then really gets handled in our next, final session.

Session 8: Wrap-up — Land Ahoy! (Saturday Afternoon – At Sea)

Purpose: To uncover how your marriage will transform by making changes that will last for years to come
Duration: 90 minutes
This closing session will take you through specific tasks to identify and plan how to implement your learning once you are home. We are very purposeful about ensuring this cruise will transform your life rather than just being a flash in the pan. You will identify changes you’re ready to make, share those with each other, and then commit to implementing these once home. Don’t worry, we’ll help you keep it realistic and achievable!
So like I was just saying there will be very specific tasks and exercises you’ll be working through to make sure you can take all that you’ve learned and bring it home. You’ll be looking at changes you’re ready to make now, ones that will take more work or will happen in the future, and then you’ll be sharing those with each other and committing to what you’re planning. I think it can be easy to freak out a little here but don’t worry, we’ll help you keep it realistic and achievable and also will help you learn how to adjust and be flexible with the plan so that you’re keeping it real.

So you can see there are some pretty amazing things that are going to happen in the lives of married couples who come on this cruse! Will you join us? We’d love to have you. Especially if you’ve been listening to us for a long time, it would be great to meet you in person and be with you as you take your marriage to the next level.

Stateroom Rates

We have blocked out a number of staterooms aboard the Celebrity Silhouette at special rates. These are locked in only until October 31, 2017!

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There should be room after that but we won’t have any control over prices after October 31st. And then Mid November or so the block of rooms we’re holding we will no longer be able to hold.

Again, if you’re catching this after that point in time, there may be room on the cruise — just reach out to us we’ll figure out how to to get you aboard. But if you want the best deals, you need to move within the next week or so (by the end of October).

Caleb and I would LOVE for you to join us for this week of delight and discovery. Go reserve your place now as the current room prices are only locked in until October 31!

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