Does cruise port to airport exit qualify?

Yes, this is definitely possible and even more, you have a right to travel via Shanghai transit area visa free based on 24 (if your entire transit time in Shanghai will be shorter than 24 hours) or on 144 (if your transit time in Shanghai wider area will be longer than 24, but shorter than 144 hours) visa free transit. The basic detail you have to take care of is that the immediate points before and after Shanghai have to be in two different countries or eligible territories (eligible territories: Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau). In other words, if your immediate point before Shanghai was in Japan, your immediate point after Shanghai can be in any other country or eligible territory with the exception of Japan. Also, your flight out of Shanghai is not allowed to have any additional landing within mainland China of any kind.

Thank you very, very much. We are flying direct from detroit to shanghai (PVG). We would ask the authorities for the 144-hours visa exemption. We plan to stay at a hyatt hotel for nights in Shanghai. Then go on Royal Caribbean to Japan for 7 nights and the ship comes back to the Shanghai cruise port. We are hoping that they will not count the cruise to Japan part of the 144-hours visa exemption. If need be, we will request Japan custom to give us visa stamps on our US passports. When at the cruise port, we hope the authorities could give us the 24-hours visa exemption so we can take a taxis to the airport (same day) to fly directly to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. Do you see any problems we may have cause with this trip planning on a China visa exemption trip?

Meant to say, we plan to stay at a hyatt in Shanghai for 2 nights before we go on our cruise.

Karen, your entire journey is perfectly eligible for visa free transit scheme.

The first segment:

Detroit (US) - Shanghai 2 nights (China) - Japan

This is perfectly eligible for 144 hour visa free transit. I advise you to print out your flight and cruise tickets to minimize the formalities check duration.

The second segment:

Japan - Shanghai - Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam)

Is also perfectly eligible for both 24 or 144 hour visa free transit depending on the time you will spend in Shanghai. Based on your plan that you will take a taxi from the cruise port to the airport in Shanghai, this will be covered by 24 hour visa free transit.

To conclude... You first stay in Shanghai will be covered by 144 and your second stay by 24 hour visa free transit. You do not have to bother with any formality, but do yourself a favor and print out your cruise and flight tickets and have the printouts at hand, ready to be presented to relevant authorities. No visas are needed at all and no problems are to occur.

Borut,

Very happy to take your advice. Thank you so much, again! Just was worried if they allow 2 visa exemptions in a short amount of time and if they count the 7 nights, round-trip cruise ship into the 144 hours, or not. Those were the unknown part for me. Chinese consular and visa application businesses will not give a straight yes-or-no answer to my travel "scheme", and always told me to just apply for the 10-years visa to be safe. Many online commentators believe they just said that generic response to collect fees. Thank you for being thorough and helpful to travelers around the world. We have 6 people going on this trip, and that will save us a good amount of cost and time for something that is not needed.

Take it easy. Your itinerary is well eligible for the visa-free transits. There is no limits on the number of visa-frees one can use during a time period. Also, the 7-nights cruise is not included in the 144-hour, I'm quite sure about it.