MS Scandinavian Star, originally named MS Massalia, was a car and passenger ferry built in France in 1971. The ship was set on fire on April 7, 1990, killing 159 people, and which the official investigation determined to have been caused by a convicted arsonist who died in the blaze. This finding has since been disputed.After a lengthy period of lay-up after the fire, she was eventually repaired and refitted and put back into ferry service as the Regal Voyager, initially in the Mediterranean, and later in the Caribbean. She was eventually scrapped in 2004.

A ferry is a vessel used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water taxi.

Ferries form a part of the public transport systems of many waterside cities and islands, allowing direct transit between points at a capital cost much lower than bridges or tunnels. Ship connections of much larger distances (such as over long distances in water bodies like the Mediterranean Sea) may also be called ferry services, especially if they carry vehicles.