Mrs George T Haycraft, wife of one of the NZ Shipping Co's directors, launched Rotorua on 9 July 1910.

Rotorua was slightly larger than Ruahine, and at the time was the largest ship yet built in Dumbarton.

Exhaust steam from the low-pressure cylinder of each of those engines powered a Parsons turbine that drove her centre shaft.

[12] She completed the voyage from England in 42 days and 20 hours, and crossing the Tasman Sea she averaged 14 knots (26 km/h).

[17] Early in 1913 the New Zealand Government experimented by shipping 3,000 eggs to England aboard Rotorua.

About a week later she reached the neutral port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, where she was instructed to stay for safety.

[20] On her return voyage to New Zealand in October 1914, Rotorua did not call at Cape Town but continued to Hobart without stopping.

[21] On another voyage to New Zealand in July and August 1915, Rotorua did not call at Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

[23] In February 1916 Rotorua repatriated 203 members of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force who had been discharged from hospitals in the UK.

Third class aboard Rotorua included access to her forward well deck, but she not long after she left England some of the civilians complained about the soldiers.

[30] On 24 December 1916 the Union Steamship Company liner Maitai ran aground on a reef off Rarotonga.

[33] Rotorua had been bound for Wellington,[33] but with Maitai's mails and passengers she diverted to Auckland, where she arrived on the evening of 8 January.

[35] On 19–20 January Rotorua was in Port Chalmers when two of her stokers went absent without leave, went to Dunedin and enlisted in the armed forces under false names.

She called at Newport News, Virginia[37] and in March she reached Plymouth, where her 264 passengers disembarked.

She then left Plymouth for London,[38] but on 22 March 1917 SM UC-17 sank her by torpedo in Lyme Bay about 24 nautical miles (44 km) east of Start Point, Devon.

[38] Her loss was a double blow for the NZ Shipping Co, as on 10 March the German merchant raider SMS Möwe had sunk Otaki in a gun battle.