I will go cruise as a tourist and stop in Guangzhou coming from Hong Kong.

You will need a visa obtained in advance for this stop since the only eligible visa free option from Hong Kong to Guangzhou is by air. As I can see, you have not mentioned the time of your visit to Guangzhou and that could be quite important. Why? The reason is simple. Chinese are finishing a state of the art passenger cruise terminal in Nansha/Guangzhou and the operators of the terminal have already started to lobby for more liberal visa/formalities regime in order to increase the attraction of the port that goes logically in pair with the visit to Hong Kong. Today this is not allowed to perform in visa free regime, so within several months and especially when the new terminal opens in November, the entire situation could change in your favor.

In case that your planned cruise is scheduled for the first several months of the next year, please, wait for a while because it is quite possible that the visa regime will be liberalized. Quite the contrary, if your cruise is scheduled until the end of this year, you are advised to obtain a Chinese visa in advance. A good detail is that Canadian citizens can obtain a long term multiple entry visa, but you have specifically ask that (for long term visa) at the moment of application with the argument that you intend to visit China more times in the future.

Thank you ZUPAN! Our cruise will be next year in March and I will take your advice to wait. The cruise ship will stop in Hong Kong for a day and next day will stop to Guangzhou for 6 - 7 hours. If we cannot take a free 24 /77h visa, probably we’ll elect to not disembark and visiting Guangzhou.