ABA SIn Fronteras CEU Retreat | Starting at $1800
15 BCBA CEUs.
4 Nights.
1 unforgettable learning experience.
Mérida, Yucatán Nov. 11-15, 2026
15 Total CEUS. 5 Ethics CEUS. 5 supervision ceus. 5 general ceus. all meals included. all lodging included. all excursions included.
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15 Total CEUS. 5 Ethics CEUS. 5 supervision ceus. 5 general ceus. all meals included. all lodging included. all excursions included. 〰️
WHO THIS IS FOR
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You've stopped asking your friends to come with you.
Most BCBAs don't have peers who can take a week off in November. This is a way to go somewhere beautiful, do work that matters, and arrive at dinner already knowing everyone at the table gets it.
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Your nervous system has been on for a long time.
Not another weekend off where the rest doesn’t happen. Four days where the work isn't urgent, the conversations aren't transactional, and the meals aren't eaten over a laptop. You'll come back with an increased capacity.
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You know your training didn't cover this.
Your caseload includes families whose first language isn't English, whose values don't match your textbook examples, whose lives have a context you weren't taught to see. CEUs that take this seriously.
A four-day professional retreat for BCBAs who need their CEUs to mean something — and a setting where they actually do. Built around two questions our field doesn't ask enough: When did I last feel like I was learning, not just delivering? and What am I missing about the families I serve because no one taught me to see it?
WHAT’S INCLUDED
Every BCBA. every ceu. every tier.
Hotel · 4 nights — locally owned, breakfast included
All meals — lunches Thu–Sat, dinners Wed–Sat
All excursions — Hacienda Xtepén, Uxmal, Lucas de Gálvez
All transportation — airport, sessions, excursions, dinners
15 CEUs — BACB-compliant certificates within 45 days
Max Cohort of 21 — small enough that nobody disappears
A 4-hour flight from Southern California. The safest state in Mexico. Half the cost of a beach resort.
Yucatán is the safest state in Mexico and one of the safest places in North America by violent crime statistics. The U.S. State Department classifies it at the lowest possible advisory level — the same level applied to most of Western Europe, Canada, and Japan.
Mérida specifically has been ranked among the safest large cities in the Americas by multiple international indices. The colonial historic district where Hotel Zamná sits is walkable day and night.
Verify the current advisory at travel.state.gov →Advisory levels can change. We monitor State Department guidance continuously and will notify all registrants if the advisory for Yucatán is raised before the retreat.
Meet the Instructors
Fernando Escalera-Serna
M.Ed., Board Certified Behavior Analyst, Licensed Behavior Analyst
Lead Instructor · Founder, ABA Sin Fronteras
Fernando is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst, clinical supervisor, and the founder of Escalera Serna Behavior Services. He has spent ten years in ABA, the last three as a clinical leader and practice owner. The majority of his caseload across that decade has been bilingual and Spanish-speaking families — the families most of our training materials weren't built around.
He supervises clinicians at every credential level. He has run team trainings, parent education, and the kind of teaching that happens in clinics when somebody has to figure out how to do the work better in real time. He's Mexican-American, bilingual, with family in Aguascalientes — a clinician whose cultural fluency isn't theoretical and whose Spanish doesn't come from a course.
He'll be leading the supervision masterclass at Hacienda Xtepén, the market exercise at Lucas de Gálvez, and the ethics threads woven through the four days. ABA Sin Fronteras is the curriculum he's been quietly building toward for years.
Emmet Marsh
Our Mérida Commitment
“50% of what you spend goes directly to Mérida and Yucatán small businesses. The hotel is locally owned. The restaurants are locally owned. The tour guides, drivers, artisans, and venue staff are all paid at or above local professional rates. Half the dollars you put into this retreat stay in the community that hosts us. This is by design.”
A Preview of Your CEUs
Friday morning
The supervision masterclass.
Hacienda near Mérida · BST triads with structured feedback.
Two and a half hours running supervision the way the literature actually says to. At a 17th-century hacienda 30 minutes outside the city, you cycle through three roles in triads: supervisor, supervisee, observer. You give corrective feedback on real clinical scenarios using the BST loop — verbal description, modeling, rehearsal, feedback — applied to yourself. Most of us were never supervised this way. Now we get to practice supervising the way it should have been done.
2.5 SUPERVISION BST loop · structured observer · corrective feedback
Saturday morning
The market exercise.
Lucas de Gálvez market. 200 pesos. Spanish only.
Each attendee receives 200 pesos and a list of three items to purchase at Mérida's largest public market. The catch: no translation apps, no English. You navigate vendor stalls, prices, weights, and small talk in a language you may not fully speak. The debrief lands hard. This is what your non-English-speaking families navigate at every intake, every plan review, every IEP meeting.
1.5 ETHICS cultural humility · client perspective · structured debrief
Retreat Packages
Price listed is per person
King Room, 4 nights (check in Wednesday- check out Sunday)
Single Occupancy
Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner included.
Access to 15 immersive CEU learning hours throughout the 4 day retreat. Full session attendance required to obtain CEU credits.
All excursions included
Please Note: By reserving, you are agreeing to all Retreat Policies and Terms listed at the bottom of this page.
Price listed is per BCBA (max 2 per room)
Double Room, 2 beds for 4 nights (check in Wednesday- check out Sunday)
Double Occupancy
Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner included for both BCBAs
Access to 15 immersive CEU learning hours throughout the 4 day retreat for both BCBAs. Full session attendance required to obtain CEU credits.
All excursions included for both BCBAs.
Please Note: By reserving, you are agreeing to all Retreat Policies and Terms listed at the bottom of this page.
Price listed is per person.
No hotel lodging included in this package. Participant is responsible for booking their own accommodations.
Lunches, and Dinners included daily.
Access to 15 immersive CEU learning hours throughout the 4 day retreat. Full session attendance required to obtain CEU credits.
Please Note: By reserving, you are agreeing to all Retreat Policies and Terms listed at the bottom of this page.
Price listed is for one BCBA and one guest. (Note: King room only)
King Room, 4 nights (check in Wednesday- check out Sunday)
Double Occupancy
Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner included for BCBA and guest.
Access to 15 immersive CEU learning hours throughout the 4 day retreat. Full session attendance required to obtain CEU credits.
All excursions included for BCBA and guest
Please Note: By reserving, you are agreeing to all Retreat Policies and Terms listed below.
A Boutique Retreat in a Cultural Capital — for Less Per CEU
ABA Sin Fronteras is a curated, intentionally small retreat in Mérida, México. All-inclusive, deeply restorative, and somehow cheaper per CEU than the big conventions. The numbers are below.
Comparable conference
ABAI convention
San Francisco · May 2026
Non-member rate
| Registration | $750 |
| CE package | $105 |
| Hotel, 4 nights | $1,160 |
| Flight to SFO | $400 |
| Meals, $100/day × 5 | $500 |
| Ground transport | $120 |
| Total | $3,035 |
All-in per CEU
$202
if you earn 15 CEUs
This retreat
Early birdABA Sin Fronteras
Mérida · Nov 2026
Solo all-in tier
| Registration | $2,200$1,980 |
| CEU package | included |
| Hotel, 4 nights | included |
| Flight to MID | $525 |
| All meals | included |
| Ground transport | included |
| Total | $2,505 |
All-in per CEU
$167
15 CEUs guaranteed · early-bird rate
Before you decide…
Why $2,000 when free CEUs exist?
Honest answer: free CEUs and this retreat aren't the same product.
If you've been running on empty for a year, if your caseload includes families whose context you weren't trained to see, if you can't remember the last time you felt like you were learning rather than delivering — free CEUs don't fix that. They were never built to.
You're not paying $2,000 for 15 CEUs. You're paying for four hosted and calibrated days with 20 BCBAs who get it, BST triads at a 17th-century hacienda, a market exercise that will sit with you for a year, dinners that recalibrate what you think culturally responsive practice means, and a city that earns the trip.
One more thing most BCBAs miss. Continuing education that maintains the skills of your current profession is generally deductible as a meaningful business expense — so if you're 1099, run an LLC, or have an S-corp, ask your CPA. For many self-employed attendees, the real out-of-pocket lands a few hundred dollars below the sticker. We send a paid invoice with our ACE Provider number within 24 hours of registration, so your accountant has what they need.
Policies & Terms
These terms apply to every registration for the November 2026 ABA Sin Fronteras retreat in Mérida, Yucatán, México (the "Retreat"), hosted by Escalera Serna Behavior Services, LLC ("ESBS"). Registration constitutes acceptance of these terms. Please read them before registering.
1. What your registration includes
All tiers include 15 BCBA-approved CEUs (5 ethics, 5 supervision, 5 general); lunches and dinners on session days (Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday); all scheduled excursions; ground transportation to and from session venues and excursions; and your BACB-compliant CEU certificate issued within 45 days of the Retreat's conclusion. Tiers that include hotel accommodation also include four nights of lodging at Hotel Zamná Boutique (Wednesday through Sunday) and daily breakfast at the hotel.
Your registration does not include air travel; passport or visa fees; travel insurance; spa services or optional excursions outside the official program; bar tabs, room service, or hotel incidentals; or gratuities beyond what ESBS arranges with retreat vendors.
2. Cancellation by you
We hold seats with hotel deposits, instructor commitments, and venue bookings months in advance. Cancellations create real costs that can't always be recovered. Our refund schedule is structured to be fair to you while protecting the retreat's viability for the rest of the cohort.
Within 14 days of registering: Full refund. No questions, no fees. This is your grace period.
Through August 31, 2026: 50% refund. The other 50% covers non-recoverable hotel deposits, instructor commitments, and ACE compliance costs already incurred.
September 1 – October 1, 2026: Transfer only. No cash refund, but you may transfer your registration to another BCBA in good standing for a $50 administrative fee.
After October 1, 2026: No refund or transfer. Hotel rooms and instructor compensation are committed at this point and cannot be unwound.
All refund requests must be sent in writing to admin@escalerasernabehaviorservices.com. Refunds are processed within 14 business days of acceptance and returned to the original payment method.
If you arrive late, leave early, or miss sessions during the Retreat for any reason, no partial refund is available. CEUs are issued only for sessions you attended in full and verified per the attendance policy.
3. Cancellation by ESBS
If ESBS cancels the Retreat for any reason other than force majeure, you will receive a full refund of all registration fees paid, returned to your original payment method within 30 days of the cancellation announcement. ESBS is not responsible for any other costs you incur in connection with the Retreat, including airfare, travel insurance premiums, lost wages, or any other expense that flows from your decision to attend. We strongly recommend purchasing trip cancellation insurance that protects you against these costs.
ESBS reserves the right to cancel the Retreat if registration fails to reach a minimum viable cohort size by October 1, 2026, or if circumstances render the retreat unworkable. We will notify all registrants in writing as soon as a cancellation decision is made.
4. Force majeure events
"Force majeure" means events beyond ESBS's reasonable control that make the Retreat impossible or unsafe to hold. This includes but is not limited to: pandemic or public health emergency; U.S. State Department travel advisories at Level 3 or 4 for Yucatán state; hurricanes, earthquakes, or natural disasters affecting Mérida or air travel to it; acts of terrorism or civil unrest; unanticipated venue closure, hotel insolvency, or instructor incapacitation that cannot be remedied within the retreat timeframe; or any government action that prohibits the Retreat from being held.
If a force majeure event causes ESBS to cancel or substantially modify the Retreat, ESBS will work in good faith to either (a) reschedule the Retreat within 12 months and transfer your registration to the new dates at no additional cost, or (b) offer a partial refund calculated as the total amount paid minus any non-recoverable expenses ESBS has already incurred. You may decline either option and pursue your own losses through your travel insurance carrier. ESBS's liability under force majeure is limited to the amount of your registration fee actually paid. We will not be liable for airfare, hotel cancellation fees outside our block, or any consequential damages.
5. Travel insurance is your responsibility
You are responsible for purchasing travel insurance. ESBS does not provide trip insurance, medical coverage, or any other protection against unexpected events. We strongly recommend a comprehensive travel insurance policy that covers, at minimum: trip cancellation for covered reasons, trip interruption, medical coverage abroad (your U.S. health insurance likely will not cover treatment in México), emergency medical evacuation, and lost or delayed baggage.
For maximum flexibility, consider a "Cancel For Any Reason" (CFAR) policy, which typically refunds 50–75% of trip costs if you cancel for reasons not covered by standard policies. CFAR coverage must be purchased within 14–21 days of your initial trip deposit, depending on the carrier.
Comparison sites like InsureMyTrip.com, Squaremouth.com, and TravelInsurance.com let you compare policies from multiple carriers. ESBS will not refund registration fees because you failed to purchase insurance and then experienced a covered event.
6. Health, medical, and dietary needs
By registering, you acknowledge that you are physically and mentally able to participate in the Retreat program, which includes walking 1–2 miles per day in tropical heat, navigating uneven colonial sidewalks, climbing stairs at Hacienda Xtepén, and standing for periods at the Lucas de Gálvez market.
If you have a medical condition, mobility limitation, dietary restriction, or mental health concern that may affect your participation, please notify us at admin@escalerasernabehaviorservices.com at least 45 days before the Retreat so we can discuss reasonable accommodations. We cannot guarantee accommodations requested less than 30 days before the Retreat.
ESBS, its instructors, and its vendors are not medical providers. We are not responsible for diagnosing, treating, or managing any medical condition that arises before, during, or after the Retreat. In the event of a medical emergency during the Retreat, we will assist with calling local emergency services and transport to a Mérida hospital, but you remain financially responsible for all medical costs.
7. Liability and assumption of risk
The Retreat involves activities including international travel, ground transportation, excursions to historical sites and public markets, and unstructured time in a foreign city. By registering, you acknowledge that travel and these activities involve inherent risks, and you voluntarily assume those risks.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, you release Escalera Serna Behavior Services, LLC, its owners, employees, instructors, contractors, and vendors from any liability for injury, illness, loss, theft, damage to property, or any other harm that may occur in connection with the Retreat, except to the extent caused by ESBS's gross negligence or willful misconduct. This release does not waive any rights you have under applicable consumer protection laws.
8. CEU attendance and certification
CEUs are awarded only for sessions you attend in full. Attendance is verified by sign-in and sign-out at each session, and by completion of any knowledge check questions associated with the session. If you arrive late, leave early, or miss any portion of a session, the CEU for that session may be reduced or forfeited at the discretion of the ACE Coordinator.
Your CEU certificate will be issued within 45 days of the Retreat's conclusion and emailed to the address you provide at registration. ESBS will report your CEUs to the BACB in accordance with ACE Provider requirements. You are responsible for ensuring your contact information with the BACB is current.
9. Photography, recording, and confidentiality
The Retreat is a confidential professional learning environment. To protect the privacy of attendees and the integrity of clinical case discussions, recording (audio or video) of any session is prohibited without written consent of all parties present. Photography during sessions is also prohibited; photography during meals, excursions, and unstructured time is permitted with the consent of any people in the photo.
ESBS may take photographs and short video clips during the Retreat for marketing purposes. By registering, you grant ESBS permission to use your image in retreat marketing materials. If you prefer not to be photographed, please notify the ESBS team at check-in and we will accommodate this.
What is shared by attendees during sessions stays within the cohort. Attendees agree not to disclose the personal disclosures, clinical scenarios, or vulnerable conversations of other attendees outside the Retreat.
10. Payment terms
Registration is confirmed only upon receipt of payment (or your first installment, for payment plans). Payment plans require all installments to be completed by October 1, 2026. Failure to complete payment by this date forfeits your registration with no refund. ESBS accepts payment by credit card, debit card, and ACH bank transfer. A 3% processing fee may apply to credit card payments.
11. Code of conduct
The Retreat is a professional learning environment. We expect attendees to treat fellow BCBAs, instructors, hotel staff, retreat vendors, and the Mérida community with respect. Behavior that is harassing, discriminatory, threatening, or that materially disrupts the experience of other attendees may result in removal from the Retreat without refund and reporting to the BACB Ethics Department where applicable.
12. Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, without regard to its conflict of laws principles. Any dispute arising under these terms will be resolved by mediation in Orange County, California, before resorting to litigation.
13. Contact
Questions about these terms, refund requests, or accommodations: admin@escalerasernabehaviorservices.com
Getting to Mérida from Southern California
To Mérida
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$450–$600 round trip
LAX → MID via Mexico City, Guadalajara, Houston, or Dallas.
American, United, Aeromexico, and Volaris fly the route. One stop, ~7 hrs door to door.
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~$350-$550 r/t
SAN → CBX → TIJ → MID. Walk the Cross Border Xpress pedestrian bridge from San Diego into Tijuana airport (~$38 RT in Nov, low season). Volaris and VivaAerobus fly TIJ→MID for ~$250–$450 RT. Cheaper than LAX, often a better schedule.
To MÉrida via Cancun
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Total Cost: ~$750 r/t
Cancun to Mérida via Mexico's largest bus line. 37+ daily departures from CUN airport or downtown Cancún. ADO Platino is the luxury tier — reclining seats, Wi-Fi, USB.
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$350-$550
$30 tourist premier · 3.5–4 hrs
Direct CUN airport → Mérida-Teya. Stops include Valladolid and Chichén Itzá. ESBS can arrange pick up from the Mérida- Teya station to the hotel.
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~$300-$600USD , depending on non-stop vs. 1 stop
TIJ to CUN airport → Mérida-Teya. Stops include Valladolid and Chichén Itzá. From Teya, IE-Tram shuttle to downtown (45 MXN, 30–40 min). 4 trains/day.
