The DW, kids, and I booked a week long trip over the 4th of July Holiday (Sat to Sat). Our original campsite was the DOD campsite at Oak Grove on the NAS near Pensacola, FL. This site was very clean and the camp host was very nice and extremely helpful. The campground is within walking distance to the lighthouse and the Naval Air Museum. The bath house is clean and roomy and the walk to private beach is about 300-400 feet. The beach says no swimming but the camp host said that you are allowed. We did and so did every other camper.
We would love to stay there again but ONLY IF we do not take our motorcycles. This campground is within the gates of the NAS. All personnel on the motorcycle are REQUIRED to wear long pants, long sleeve, full finger gloves, over the ankle boots, eye protection, and DOT helmet. While the wife and I will typically wear this gear anyways, during the summer months we will wear a "lighter" version of protective gear that is not acceptable to the guards at the base check points.
This bulkier gear would have made our trip extremely uncomfortable since we planned to visit other family that was staying off base throughout the week. So Sunday we decided to try and find another campground. Unbelievably, we found another DOD campground not within the fences of NAS that had openings. Blue Angels campground is still considered NAS property and you need to have DOD access to stay there, but they do not require all the bulky gear to ride motorcycles onto the campground (only long pants - which we wore anyways because motorcycle engines get hot next to bare legs).
Blue Angel park has two parts.
1. Battleship row - full hookups, really nice bathhouse, laundry, concrete pads, paved drives, and plenty of room between campsites. No beach access (a very good hike to Anchor Cove and the beach there)
2. Anchor Cove (where we stayed) - water and electric hookups, semi-nice bathhouse, no laundry (use Battleship row but need to drive there), gravel drives, dirt pads (pretty level), very short walk to the "beach". Beach is about 200' of sand onto the bay. The water is brackish to fresh and very warm since the water is only a few feet deep for about 600' out into the bay - we didn't venture any further but it didn't seem to be getting any deeper.
There is also an abandoned flightline that trailers and such can be stored while staying at either park.
In the future, we will stay at Battleship row without the kids and Anchor Cove with the kids.
Bonus for future trips, we don't have to purchase temporary Florida fishing licenses to fish from the DOD campgrounds (stingray and catfish are plenty at Blue Angel campground).
