Built by Burmeister & Wain in Copenhagen, Gullfoss was handed over to Eimskip on the 27 April 1950. It had a passenger capacity of 210 people: 104 in 1st class, 62 in 2nd class and 44 in 3rd class. It had a 12 cylinder 2 stroke B&W diesel engine of 4025 bhp which gave it a cruising speed of 17.5 knots. Gullfoss was normally used on 2-week round trips to Leith and Copenhagen.  Later in its career, Hamburg was added into the route during winter time and the trips took 3 weeks. 

The vessel was on charter to a French company in the winter of '50 -'51 and was running from Marseille to Casablanca. The vessel was used on chartered trips to Lisbon and the Canary Islands in 1970 but that did not prove profitable as the ever increasing efficiency of the turboprops and the birth of the jet liner in the early sixties practically killed every ocean liner and the vessel was laid up in the winter from the beginning of the seventies, apart from a few domestic runs. The vessel was finally sold to Orri Navigation Lines in Jeddah - renamed Mecca and registered in Limassol, Cyprus. On a pilgrim run in the Red Sea, enroute from Jeddah to Port Said, the vessel caught fire with around 1,100 passengers onboard, ran aground and capsized the day after.

Eimskip still operate cargo services from Iceland round the world, and one ship also carries passengers to Europe in the summer.