Naval Air Station Pensacola — Local services in Pensacola

We vacation in the Gulf Shores, Alabama area almost every year. Visiting Pensacola NAS is always on our to-do list. What a great place to spend the day or just a half-day; watching the Blue Angels practice, (Captain Bernanke (spelling) and his squad are amazingly talented), walking through the museum, checking out military aviation gear and amazing flying machines, not to mention talking with former military men!! We met a retired navy pilot, Cash Barber, who informed us he was 93 years young and related stores of WWII on New Guinea in the South Pacific, rescuing a couple hundred, stranded Australian service members and their gear, it gave me chills!! We all shook his hand and thanked him for his service to our country, ( WWI, Korea AND Vietnam!!! Impressive 30+ years military career!). A visit to the Cubi Bar for lunch is always in order; the food is wonderful, (love those fresh, hot cookies), and the service is great. This military museum is one of the best we have ever visited; great security, (100% ID and bag checks, multiple places), especially clean, (floors are glowing and shiny, and they are always DUSTING the planes!!!!), friendly, knowledgeable military staff to help with questions or whatever, and just a feeling a PRIDE when you walk through the doors that THIS is what makes our country GREAT!! Here is a picture of us, from later that day, Sept. 12, 2017, at the beach in Gulf Shores. Please, show this to Mr. Barber, (we did not catch his rank, so sorry), if you can, wish we had gotten a picture with him while we were there!!! Sincerely, Patti and Mark Shuttleworth North...

We went to the Naval Air Museum 20 or years ago. We tried to our grandsons earlier this week and they were so excited after hearing us tell of our great experience there. I admit I failed to do enough research this time. We don't have our Real IDs. I knew you have to have them to go on bases, but never thought I would need to. When we went to the museum in the past it was not on base. We followed the signs to the museum and then we were right at the base entrance and didn't think about the ID situation. The Special Forces guard was rude before he even saw our IDs. He was condescending, cursing. When our 17 year old who doesnt have a driver's license presented a copy of an ID on paper from Homeland Security, the guard said, Well, isn't that pretty." He could have simply said I am sorry but you can't enter the base due to not having the Real ID for everyone in the car, turned us around, without all the rudeness. Oh and I said at one point just trying to lighten the situation, we have a veteran in the here. He replied very sarcastically, Well, isn't that nice." Then we were right at were following his instructions on how to turn to get out of line and out of the entrance, the person behind us was pulling up to where we were as most people would do. The guard screamed, Stop and I mean screamed. Then he screamed I said STOP. It was all uncalled for. A great example for a military man to show young men that our family has raised to polite and helpful. I was too started to get an ID on him but it was Wednesday, July 2, 2025 at around 10:30...

as far as military families this place is the worst ive ever seen. the hotels on base are ridiculously expensive for how poor quality they are, most civilian staff just dont care about their jobs and pretty much everyone here knows nothing about anything. you have a question about something ? good luck getting an answer. the chain of command has got to be the most disrespectful and discriminatory people ive ever had the displeasure of meeting, they will treat their soldiers as a problem if they have any sort of medical issue. there is an overwhelming issue of toxicity and greed here, the power hungry leaders make for poor quality soldiers and just an overall horribly run...