Neptune Palm Beach Boutique Resort & Spa

Arriving through tropical gardens on Diani Beach, guests reach a cluster of makuti-roofed cottages built four rooms to a unit. The resort holds sixty rooms in total, each around 35 m² and finished in a Swahili-inspired style with a king-size bed, mosquito net and a terrace fitted with a Lamu-style day bed. Deluxe Garden Rooms sit among the planting; Deluxe Sea Side Rooms stand closest to the pool; Deluxe Ocean Front Rooms take the first row, looking over garden, pool and a partial view of the Indian Ocean. Check-in runs from 2pm.

Bathrooms come with a walk-in rain shower and hairdryer, and rooms carry air conditioning, satellite TV, a mini fridge, safe and tea and coffee maker. Outside the rooms, the grounds hold a spa, a library, a business centre and swimming pools, along with an outdoor disco and a lounge deck for evenings. Guests can take up tennis, windsurfing, scuba diving, snorkelling or a game of table tennis, and there is a kids' club for families. You can hear the sea from the beachfront terraces at low tide. Breakfast runs buffet-style each morning. It is a compact, four-and-a-half-star stay built for coastal ease rather than scale.