If you're just looking for a decent place to stay at then Xiangmihu is not bad. If I recall correctly, I think that price is pretty reasonable too, around 250-300 RMB (40 USD) per night for a single room. The area is plenty safe as Wuzhong road is a pretty big road with lots of traffic even late at night, not to mention restaurants, clubs and saunas. There are just sections of it that seems a bit run down (evident by all the BBS with the pink lights) but I doubt that it's dangerous even in those areas. Just avoid the small and dark alleyways and you'll be fine.
If you want to stay at another hotel, I'll probably suggest Jin Jiang Star Hotel. It is also right on Wuzhong road but it looks to be a more expensive hotel, judging by the way it looks from the outside. Another place I would recommend is Rayfont Service Apartments Hotel. This is the hotel I sometimes stay at and the price range for a single is about the same as Xiangmihu. However, it's not on Wuzhong road but rather West Yan An road (Jiangsu road is the cross-road). Even if the taxi driver don't know where this Rayfont is, right next to it is the 5-star Regent (Long Zi Mont) Hotel and every taxi driver knows Regent unless they're from Pudong. Long Zi Mont also manages all the Rayfont hotels so you can be sure that the rooms are of decent quality and clean. This is not to mention that since quite a few foreigners stay at Rayfont, the front desk service people knows English well enough to communicate. Shrugs, it might save you some hassle if you don't know any Mandarin. If you want to go cheaper, across the street from Regent/Rayfont is 168 Motel. It's a chain and they got like half a dozen locations around Shanghai. The rooms aren't as nice in terms of decoration but at least they are clean and will cost you only about 20 bucks a night if I recall.
Anyways, from a mongering standpoint, this Rayfont location is smack in the middle of many sauna locations (10 min taxi-ride from Xiangmihu Hotel, 10 mins rom Shanghai Hotel, 15 mins from where the old Yuping sauna was, basically shouldn't run you more than 15-20 RMB each way. There's even one that's within a 5 min walk. You just gotta cross West Ya An road and head left on it for a block and half. It's got a big ol' blue, yellow and red neon sign above the 2nd floor, can't miss it.
By the way, I wouldn't suggest picking up girls from the BBS. From the few BBS that I've seen during my previous trips to Shanghai, those girls are mostly low grade with some that are downright hideous. I don't know about you but my personal preference is to be able to look at the girl I'm sleeping with
To be quite frank, I don't even know if you could pick up BBS girls for a night because I've only gone into one (passed by quite a few and glanced inside) and walked right out.
Instead, I'd try to get the sauna girls to do outcall though there's really no point in negotiating the price since it is set by the management at the sauna. The exception is that if the girl trust you and like you well enough, she'll use one of her monthly off-days to spend that time with you. That's out of management control and the price is basically up for grabs. Some will ask for cash, others will ask for jewelry or cell phones and it'll usually cost you about 200-400 USD, maybe more if you're unlucky and got a real gold digger that wants to drain you for all you're worth. Lastly, by going the sauna route, you'd get FAR better quality girls in terms of looks and service than your run of the mill BBS (cleaner too).
However, if you're a foreigner that don't know how to speak mandarin, Shenchuan (the name of the sauna at Xiangmihu) wouldn't be the right place for you to try for outcall. They do have some caucasian clients from time to time but literally no girl there speaks enough English to communicate half way decently. Some of them do speak Japanese pretty well however since a lot of their clients are Japanese but I digress. Basically what I'm saying is that, if you can't communicate with them well enough, it would be futile for you to try to get them to go to your hotel room.
Here are a few tips if you still want to try Shenchuan for the incall 90 min sessions. From what some of those girls told me, when it comes to foreigner clients, there are a couple of major turn-offs for them, enough to make them want to semi-rush you out the door within half an hour.
1. Don't wear too much cologne. They can't stand the smell.
2. Hopefully you're not too hairy because it literally scares them half to death.
3. Don't look down on them, try to smile and be gentle. They hate clients that are rough with them or act like you're better than them.
4. Don't ask them for their name and age. For starters they only go by numbers there so they won't tell you their name (unless you're a repeat client and they like you). Secondly, they think asking for their age is stupid since why does it matter how old they are as long as they look like the right age range for your preferences.
5. Girls number 635/611/505 don't really like servicing foreigners for those above reasons. Don't get me wrong, they'll do it since they can't say no but chances are you won't get the best service out of them. If I were you, should you run into them during the line-up, you'd be better off moving on to the other girls. Up to you though.
Here are also some other useful and non-negative tips that you probably would like to know.
1. Pay attention to the eforum.xxx they have on their waist with their numbers on it. Red means they've been there a while and have great service based on customer feedback. Blue is average service but tends to be the best looking ones for some reason. Green means they are the newest, fresh meat if you will.
2. The owner of Shenchuan has about 10 other saunas around Shanghai. You could try asking the Lauma/mama-san/girl supervisor (though I don't know if she speaks a word of English) at the front desk where the other locations are if you decide to not stay at Xiangmihu and want to find another sauna closer to your hotel. The eforum.xxx thing applies at the other places too if I recall what the girls told me.
3. Go between the hours of 1pm-7:30pm or 12am-2am. These are the non-golden hours and more girls are available for you to choose, usually about 6-10 if you go by yourself, up to 15 if you go with someone else. If you're interested in two-girl action, the time frames I gave you are also best as adding a second girl only adds 260 for a total price of 840 RMB. Between 8pm-12am, 2 girl action will run you 1160 RMB. Just pick two girls during the line-up and say Xuan Fei (twin flight) and they'll know what you mean.
That's about it, have fun. PM me if you got other questions.