In my experience, having taken about a dozen cruises, the on board things to do on the ship when in port is almost non-existent. When we got into port we automatically went ashore, except for Jamaica, and explored. We had been to SXM on many of those cruises and explored the different beaches, shopping and tours. That is part of the reason we decided to vacation there. Granted, as cruise passengers we may not have spent a ton of money on the island but we did spread some money around. We went shopping on one cruise, an ATV tour on another and found Orient Beach on another tour. Last year we spent a week on the island in September and this year we will be there for a week in June.