NTI Attendees & Critical Care RN's, Particularly CCU!

So I was looking through the itenarary for NTI and was interested in the cardiac surgery advanced life support course (CALS)???

I'd never heard of CALS before and I tried to look up CALS manuals online (well on amazon, where I usually get my books) but found nothing.

Does anyone here have their CALS certification? How was the course?

I'm just trying to think in case I don't make it to NTI can I take this course elsewhere? and who is the certifiying body?

TIA!