72 hours in China, no visa?

This link states that if you are in a Chinese city for less than 72 hours, you don't need a visa, but you cannot leave that city.

Thinking of taking a cruise that originates in Shanghai.

Anyone familiar with this?

http://www.thechinaguide.com/?action=preparation/visas

That's if you are in one of 4 international airports and you must stay in the designated city boundaries. However, you must have an airline ticket outbound to an international destination in order to qualify for those 72 hours. Moreover, a cruise ticket do not qualify as an airline ticket. But, you are allowed 24 hour transit, visa-free, to get from your plane until your ship leaves. Just have documentations that you will be on the ship. Really doesn't work for just 24 hours, too much to see, too much luggage to lug around, airport-Shanghai-cruise terminal are too far apart to really go back and forth. Get the visa and tour Shanghai properly. One last thing, China is changing their visa policies quite often at the urging from the City of Shanghai - so always check.

The "transit" visa in Shanghai came about IIRC about 2006 when Shanghai expanded air service with US carriers but onward traffic didn't match up with arrival times. So everyone had to layover. And no one was using the US to Shanghai flights because of the time consuming and expensive Chinese visa. So China Eastern, who hoped to benefit from the onward traffic and was primarily owned at the time by the Chinese government, lobbied the Chinese government to grant visa free transit for 48 hours in both Shanghai airports.

It has now expanded to include Beijing and expanded to 72 hours which is a big benefit if you just want to look around Beijing or have business in Beijing and not have to buy a Chinese visa.

Quite a bit of the info in that guide is either outdated or just flat out wrong. It is really difficult for Europeans and Americans to get a Chinese visa in Hong Kong. There are only a couple of places to do it, the lines are very long (noted in the guide) BUT for some reason, Americans are definitely hassled a lot more than others trying to get the visa. It took one of my business associates 4 days to get a Chinese visa in Hong Kong. And one of my own employees spent 2.5 days trying to get a Chinese visa in Hong Kong. Last time I ever sent one to Asia with even the possibility of going into China without getting a Chinese visa in the US first. The hotel/food costs waiting for that visa were twice as much as paying a service to get a Chinese visa in the USA. And we don't use a service unless we need a last minute visa. We go directly to the Consulate in the USA.

Multiple entry visas are now the same cost as single entry visas so you are foolish to not get a multiple entry visa even if you think you don't need it. There was a cruise 3-4 years ago that had two consecutive stops in China. The cruise line told everyone they needed a single entry visa which was correct. Then a typhoon struck someplace in the area and the second China stop had to be cancelled because the ship had to leave Chinese waters to avoid the typhoon and everyone then needed a double entry visa to re-enter China. If I am not mistaken, the editor of cruise critic was on that ship and posted a long explanation of why they were going to abandon the second stop in China, all due to visa problems.

You will need a visa and as mentioned I would get a multi entry visa and greatam has given an excellent example.

Keith

 

Multiple entry visas are now the same cost as single entry visas so you are foolish to not get a multiple entry visa even if you think you don't need it. .

Only true for American passport holders.

Greatam was right. Get your visas in the US, much easier even though you will have to be there twice. I don't like to go down to the consulate here but still beats getting the visa in Hong Kong. It was confusing and took several days to get our visas in HK. Almost miss our tour.

We had a wonderful trip to China in 2012 and had a visa firm submit the visa application for us in coordination with Vantage. Cost for two of us was about $400.

I would not mind going back to Shanghai, but hate having to get visas, just to start the cruise there.

If I can apply for the visa on my own, I can save sum dollars. I would be interested in hearing from people that successfully got their own visas.

1) I presume you can apply by mail?

2) I assume that I have to have the flight and hotel booked prior to the visa application, to include that info in the visa?

We had a wonderful trip to China in 2012 and had a visa firm submit the visa application for us in coordination with Vantage. Cost for two of us was about $400.

 

I would not mind going back to Shanghai, but hate having to get visas, just to start the cruise there.

 

If I can apply for the visa on my own, I can save sum dollars. I would be interested in hearing from people that successfully got their own visas.

 

1) I presume you can apply by mail?

2) I assume that I have to have the flight and hotel booked prior to the visa application, to include that info in the visa?

I would go to the Chinese Consulate site to look up the requirements. They change once a year and when we got our visa last August they actually changed about one week after we got ours.

I used a visa service but prefer to go that route.

Keith

If I can apply for the visa on my own, I can save sum dollars. I would be interested in hearing from people that successfully got their own visas.

 

1) I presume you can apply by mail?

2) I assume that I have to have the flight and hotel booked prior to the visa application, to include that info in the visa?

Visa applications cannot be mailed in and must be hand delivered to the consulate assigned to your state of residence (a visa service knows where to correctly go).

http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/hzqz/t169582.htm The info is a bit confusing (read carefully), but Mail Application page is for other services and not for a Visa.

You can download the visa application from your specific consulate website and get "additional documents needed" info there.

BTW: We go about every other year, fortunately we have a consulate in town. Unfortunately the line can be two blocks long just waiting for the doors to open.