Speaking at a press conference at the Fincantieri shipyard Branson said: “We like [the Virgin group’s] UK heritage. We will bring the ship to the UK to showcase it to our travel partners. We may pop up the Thames, although we wouldn’t want to get it stuck,” he joked.
“I want to show the ship off to the UK where we were born. Maybe it will be Southampton, I don’t know. But I would definitely love to come and show her off to everyone.”
It came as Branson confirmed the adult-only line may look to build child-friendly ships in future as he acknowledged the decision to initially go adults-only was a bold one.
“The first three ships are likely to be adult-only, and stay adult-only,” he said. “But at some stage we’ll definitely have ships for kids.
“We were the first airline to stop people smoking cigarettes on our planes in the ‘80s - people thought we were mad but people came all over to fly on our planes. And so we wanted to do something radical in this way [with the cruise line].”
Chief executive Tom McAlpin added the line had conducted extensive research which led to the decision to have adult-only ships, but he agreed with Branson this could change in future.
“We love kids but our research showed us that people, especially mums, want some time away from their children as well”.
“Not having children onboard means everything can be orientated towards adults, including the experiences when the ship calls at cities,” Branson added. “But in a few years time we’ll have a lot of fun developing the best kids ships.
“We want to keep this shipyard busy for decades to come.”
