Speaking onboard the new 5,200 passenger vessel in Southampton on Friday (6 January), Ludlow addressed national news reports suggesting passengers onboard Arvia faced long waits for their Christmas dinners – with some reportedly having to eat in an American diner as opposed to the main restaurant.

The vessel was due to debut earlier in the year, but Ludlow said shipyard issues forced P&O to delay the launch until 23 December. "We wouldn’t have typically planned the maiden cruise to be at Christmas," he said. "But because of issues at the shipyard, we had to delay it.

"As ever, there were a few bugs in the system. There were a handful of guests that had some problems with Christmas lunch, but across the 14-day holiday, all of those guests who had experienced problems went on to have a wonderful time. Unfortunately, the news agenda was a little light the day it happened, and therefore some media outlets carried the story."

Ludlow praised the ship’s crew for "knocking it out of the park" after they managed to rectify passengers’ problems "within a few hours".

"They responded really quickly," he said. "It’s testament to the team how they turned it around within hours to provide what was an incredible holiday.

"I’m more than confident we won’t have any problems on our Caribbean sailing today [Friday 6 January]."