[5] Starting life in the Mediterranean, she had spent the majority of her career serving the Dover-Calais cross channel ferry route with successive operators, Sealink, SNCF & SeaFrance, and was taken out of service in February 2009 and scrapped in 2011–2012 SeaFrance Cézanne started life as Ariadne, ordered by and for Rederi AB Nordö, Malmö for services in the Eastern Mediterranean.

On 7 June 1980, Soca's sister ship, MS Zenobia capsized on her maiden voyage roughly two kilometres (1.2 mi) away from Larnaca, Cyprus.

After a short refit in Bremerhaven in 1989 Fantasia was again renamed Channel Seaway and began operating a freight service between Dover and Calais.

[7] In August 1990, SPN and Sealink British Ferries signed a five-year extension to their pooling agreement on board Fiesta in Dover harbour.

[4] Following the publication of a revised schedule in 2006, she was promoted back to passenger duties, maintaining this position until the introduction of SeaFrance Molière in late 2008 where she was again relegated to freight only crossings.