144 hour visa questions

Dave, your Far East cruise is definitely makes you eligible for 144 hour visa free transit in Shanghai area and you don't need any kind of visa. There is just one condition your itinerary has to fulfill:

- Your flight from Toronto to Shanghai is not allowed to have any additional landing within mainland China and in Hong Kong. I assume that your flight, since it is China Eastern, will fly non stop from Toronto to Shanghai, but I just wanted to tell you this detail, just for a case.

You don't need any kind of visa for Hong Kong, so when you leave Shanghai, you don't need to bother any more with Chinese visas or visa free transit schemes.

You will print out your flight and cruise tickets and have them with you along with your accommodation booking in Shanghai.

As far as your questions regarding an accommodation and the tours are concerned, you are advised to make a direct contact with this agency (Travel China Guide) that will offer you a wide range of different accommodations and tours without any doubt. We, the contributors at this thread are mostly focused on visa free transit subjects, so we are actually not the best address for this segment of your inquiry :)