Planning a trip, museum looks great, but most of the hotels I am seeing are getting really crappy reviews.
Anyone been? Any helpful ideas?
You’ll probably find some newer hotels & motels near the Interstate. The area around the Navy base is an older part of town.
I can be of no help as to hotels. It has been quite a while.
The museum is well worth going to! Do not miss it.
Tremendous museum, worth the stop just for that. Also check out the museum at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, just a few miles away. Pensacola’s not a big town so any accommodations are still pretty close.
We stayed right on the beach, off season midweek so it wasn’t exorbitant. Pure white sand, amazing. We used a coupon from one of those booklets you pick up at the freeway rest stops.
When we went to the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola we stayed in Gulf Shores, AL and drove over. It was one day of a week long vacation, so the 45 minute drive wasn’t a big deal. You might want to expand your search area.
Plan on spending all day at the museum, lots to see and do!
Ditto this. Orange Beach and Gulf Shores in Alabama have some fantastic hotels and condos right on the beach, and depending on when you go, you can get some really good deals.
It’s a short drive into Pensacola from there.
And Thirded!
I lived in Gulf Shores for a summer and frequented Pensacola often, it’s really only about 30-40 minutes and you have the added benefit of being in wonderful Gulf Shores!!
Ditto - We were on a family vacation in Gulf Shores AL in 2013 & took a day to see the Museum. The area roads are a bit congested (at least they were in late June), so we left the house early & were at the museum when it opened. The drive back was a little heavier traffic, but still not too awful.
The museum is very well laid out with lots of informational signs putting what you’re looking at in context. I loved their WWII small town re-creation - staffed by volunteers who lived thru that time period. IMHO, it’s comparable in quality (if not size) to the National Museum of the USAF in Dayton.
The Cubi Bar Cafe is pretty cool - it contains a bunch of commemorative plaques from squadrons that had passed thru a bar in the Philippines from the 1950’s to the late 1980’s. The food is decent in quality and price, but the atmosphere is what makes the place.