Explora Journeys in Shanghai

Shanghai is China's largest city and its financial center, where a colonial-era riverfront faces a wall of 21st-century towers across the Huangpu. It earns the day for that single contrast plus a 400-year-old classical garden a short ride inland, and the visit is shaped above all by which terminal your ship uses and how far it sits from the center.

What to do on a day in Shanghai

• The Bund, the 1.5 km riverfront promenade lined with early-1900s European banking and trading houses, looking across the Huangpu to the Lujiazui skyline
• Yu Garden (Yuyuan), a classical Ming-era garden of pavilions, rockeries, and koi ponds laid out over 400 years ago, about a 2 to 3 hour visit with the surrounding bazaar
• The City God Temple (Chenghuang Miao) right beside Yu Garden, an active Taoist temple over 600 years old, easily paired with the garden since they sit barely 100 meters apart
• Nanjing Road, the main shopping street running inland from the Bund, a continuous pedestrian stretch of stores and neon
• A Huangpu River cruise for the full sweep of the colonial Bund on one bank and the towers of Pudong on the other, the cleanest way to take in the city's two faces in one pass

Getting ashore

An Explora-size ship (about 63,900 tons) fits the central Shanghai Port International Cruise Terminal, roughly 2 km from the Bund, under 10 minutes by car. Larger ships use Wusongkou, about 23 km out, a 40-minute drive or 2 to 2.5 hours by transit. Confirm your berth: from the central terminal one day is ample, from Wusongkou the transfer eats real time and a tour or private car pays off.

When to book the ship's excursion vs your own →

Weather and when to visit

• March to May (spring). One of the best windows. Typical temperatures range from around 8 C (47 F) up to the mid-20s C (mid-70s F), humidity in the low 70s percent, and relatively little rain. Comfortable for walking the Bund and gardens.
• September to November (autumn). The other strong window. Typical highs ease from the upper 20s C (low 80s F) in September to the upper teens C (low 60s F) by November, humidity in the 70s, and rainfall dropping off. Note typhoon season can linger into early autumn.