Earlier this week, guests were informed cruises departing Portsmouth on 4, 15 and 18 April would no longer go ahead due to the ship being privately chartered.

Speaking to TTG on Friday (11 March) ahead of a showcase event in Tilbury, McAlpin, the line’s president and chief executive, said: “As you can imagine, when you’re launching a new business and a new ship, you have to be nimble and you have to be flexible.

“We’ve got pretty massive assets here, so we need to make changes from time to time and we made a decision - but we didn’t make that decision lightly.”

McAlpin revealed he had personally written to impacted guests and believed the company was “going above and beyond” to provide compensation for the schedule change.

“As an example, we’re giving our sailors a full refund, plus a 25% future voyage credit and on top of that, we’re giving them a completely free cruise anywhere, anytime in the Mediterranean,” he said.

“So they can take a three to a 12-night cruise for free. If you think about that, that’s a pretty sizeable, very generous offer."

He continued: “We’re building a brand and we want all of our sailors to love us and we want them to come back and experience what we have created. We’re very proud of what we’ve created here at Virgin Voyages and we want to make them happy.”

McAlpin said he believed customers impacted by the cancellations would “forget about that experience and fall in love with our ship” when they are able to sail with Virgin Voyages.

“We know we will win their hearts back once they get onboard.”