Originally Posted by
Stockjock
Why would my current itinerary of USA-Shanghai-Japan (cruise) and Japan (cruise)-Shanghai-USA not be obvious? Seems apparent that Shanghai is the transit point for the onward trip to Japan via vessel. Unless I'm missing something.
Many of the itineraries that get discussed here are not obvious "transit." For example, some flies from LAX to PVG with a connection in NRT and stays in PVG for three days and then returns to LAX with a connection in KUL. The TWOV advocates state that PVG immigration will normally treat PVG as a "transit" in that scenario for purposes of TWOV even though most of us would not consider that to be a transit and there are stories of various airlines from the Australia, Europe and the US denying boarding. Your itinerary seems more obvious -- you're just going to Shanghai as a traditional transit point to get on your cruise although I'm not sure how the going to/from Japan works so I'll leave that issue to the TWOV advocates.