Upon completion on 5 September 1899, she was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet under the command of Captain John Burr. In March 1900 she did a month's cruise of Italian and Spanish ports. Captain Francis Foley was appointed in command on 12 March 1901. That month the ship was one of two cruisers tasked to escort the ocean liner , commissioned as a royal yacht for the world tour of the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York (later King George and Queen Mary), from Gibraltar to Malta, and then to Port Said. Captain Christopher Cradock was appointed in command on 24 March 1902, and from 11 June that year "Andromeda" served as flagship to Rear-Admiral Sir Baldwin Wake Walker, commander of the Cruiser Division of the Mediterranean Fleet. In May 1902 she visited Palermo to attend festivities in connection with the opening of an Agricultural Exhibition by King Victor Emmanuel, and the following month the ship was in Gibraltar for a coronation fête. "Andromeda" and other ships of the division visited Argostoli in early October 1902.