Imagine stepping out of your front door, walking down the garden to the warm, turquoise blue waters of the Indian Ocean!
That's exactly what we had when we stayed at Diani House.
It's a guest house, not a hotel and we were very lucky to be the only guests staying there - because of the political unrest earlier in the year - and thus we had the undivided attention of all the staff and were able to take full advantage of all the superb facilities Diani House has to offer.
We stayed in the Family Cottage (Gecko) which is a picturesque building alongside the main house.
Diani House is as close as you can get to being a 'residential zoo' - the garden being filled with monkeys, dik-dik, exotic birds, trees and plants. Many of them quite rare, for example Colubus monkeys who spend the day romping over the roofs and amongst the tall trees.
With 250 feet of private beach stretching out to the reef in the distance my 2 daughters and I felt very happy to be in that beautiful place. Every morning at breakfast we could decide what we wanted to eat that evening - nothing was too much trouble from exotic fish to simple pasta it was all delicious and served with panache.
Out of interest I asked how Baobab fruit tasted - the same afternoon Ali had got some for us to try (having cycled to the market to get it especially for us!) and that is typical of the five-star service we enjoyed.
For my kids the best feature was Doo-Doo, the manager's dog, who they fell in love with and we spent hours on the beach or in the sea swimming, snorkling or body boarding. When you add to that our lucky swim with Dolphins at Wasini Island it was as close as we could get to paradise.
The atmosphere is completely relaxed and it's a truly beautiful place to be. After a busy safari holiday it was superb to simply chill-out and be pampered for 6 nights in the luxury of Diani House and we all felt priveliged to be there and very sad to leave.

Spent 3 nights at Diani House near Ukunda last week enroute to the Masai Mara Reserve. We used the time at Diani to relax from the long flight from Seattle and to acclimate our group of 7. Lulu and the entire staff at Diani House made us feel very welcome, very relaxed and safe on this first trip to Kenya. The meals were fabulous, the beach was beautiful, accomodations spacious and very clean.

We had a wonderful time watching the Colobus Monkey's, snorkeling on the beach and relaxing with wonderful massage and reflexology at reasonable prices. What a great way to relax before heading out on safari.

I would highly recommend Diani House to any traveler. Will add photos to this post at a later date.
The Sullivan's