Erica was kind enough to send us a letter detailing a little snag she and her husband ran into while staying at base lodging overseas in Spain. Have a quick read so that you don't run into the same issue they did!
Ensure to get prior permission from Pass & ID section when staying on a foreign base!
My husband (Lt Col, USAF, Ret.) and I recently traveled to the Moron Airbase Spain, about 40 minutes outside of Seville, and Lajes Field on Terceira, Azores.
It was wonderful and the locations are great and close enough to activities and yet far enough away to be quiet. We would absolutely stay at both bases again!
BUT, it’s absolutely critical to arrange for prior permission to come and stay on-base. Ensure that you have this arranged at least 7 days before your planned arrival. Ask the Lodging Manager to provide the Pass & ID point of contact upon reserving / confirming your on-base reservation.
We had booked the BOQ’s on base quite a while ago, based upon their required lead times. So, after visiting Seville with groceries in our car, with confirmation email in one hand, and our military ID’s in the other, we showed up at the Moron entry gate around 4.30 pm.
There we were told to go to the pass office to get a visitor’s pass. No problem we thought, so we turned around and presented our reservation documents to the pass office. The Spanish staff there did not speak much English, but with google translate, we were able to share our intentions.
What came next was a huge shock. The Spanish soldier asked if we had arranged for prior permission through the security pass & ID office in order to stay on base. We had not. We did not realize we had to do this. Now it was 4.45 pm and they were closing at 5 pm.
This meant that we were not able to get on base at all that night. We immediately called the BOQ but unfortunately even they were not able to do anything at that point. They did call a local hotel for us and were able to get us in, about 10 minutes away.
The next morning, my husband got on the phone at 8 a.m. and contacted the Pass and ID office and was able to get the needed permission to go on base. The staff there was really very helpful.
We then contacted the BOQ again and they sent a welcoming committee, including a Spanish translator, to meet us at the gate to ensure there were no hick-ups. After a few phone calls from the Spanish soldier with the Pass/ID office, we were good to go, received a pass for our car for the week and the gate opened. We were then very happy.
Now that we knew this permission to stay on a foreign/shared base was necessary, we immediately contacted Lajes Field Pass & ID office. This pre-planning ensured us that there was not going to be any base entry issues upon our arrival in the upcoming week. The Staff at Lajes Field were really helpful and the personal ID passes were waiting for us at the base entry gate. We did have to go back to get a vehicle pass the next day too but that was not a problem. Phew.
We recommended to the Lodging Manager to consider adding a reminder message to ensure a Security Pass & ID pass document was coordinated in advance of arrival. We suggested this because if this is your first time visiting a foreign (shared) base, you might make the same mistake we made.
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