 She served as 6th Fleet destroyer tender during many deployments to the Mediterranean where she made working visits to such ports as Naples, Italy; Cannes, France; Valencia, Spain, Palma, and Barcelona, Spain; Lisbon, Portugal; Piraeus, Greece; and Istanbul, Turkey.The tender visited the Caribbean while exercising in yearly "Springboard" operations in the 1950s and 1960s, calling at ports in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and the Virgin Islands.In October 1964 "Arcadia" steamed to Orange, Texas to strip five mothballed high-speed transports for parts needed by active duty destroyers.