This may seem a bit strange we stayed in this hotel in 2000

I was just checking out the new resort at Lovers Beach (Verandah) and just had to have a look at Dian Bay.

I remember it as Mango Bay and my husband and two children visited here in October 2000. (It has obviously changed to an adults only since).

I hold very special memories of Mango Bay. It was my first trip to the Caribbean and I do not think that I could have chosen a better location/hotel. It was peaceful, friendly and beautiful. It may be on the atlantic side of the island but don;t be fooled. Mango/Dian almost has it's own lagoon, we loved it. It has safe snorkelling and watersports.

The rooms were clean and comfortable (Plumbing could be temperamental) the staff, restaurant and food were excellent (at that particular time of course)

Location, Location, Location

It was only last year that we saw this come back onto the Travel Agent Books. Originally travelled with Thomson, saw it last year with Virgin under Dian Bay as opposed to Mango Bay.

If you want quiet, restful and fairly secluded, without being out of the loop altogther, I would recommend it.

PS We had a seaview

Beautiful views from dining and bar areas. Food average, at best. Staff need customer care training. Main issue - rats scampering around dining area and bar during the evenings. Local rep. did her best to get the hotel management to recognise and deal with the infestation.

We had such great hopes for a quiet get away without any kids, there is so much potential here but it all falls so short, that is except for the food.

Tucked away down a pot holed track is a lovely setting on a quiet secluded bay near Devils bridge. The public areas are pretty good, with three nice pools - just a shame they turned from blue to green during our weeks stay.

Around 50 rooms, some with excellent views, other are just a gold fish bowl from the pool. The rooms are tired with the often threadbare bedding and towels grey in colour when they should be white. Thats WHITE WHITE WHITE if you read it, go and buy some more - they were distgusting to use but clean I hope.

The food at breakfast and lunch was a little repetative but the evening meals were excellent, four if not five star.

The staff and there were often more of them than guests at times, seemed bored. Trying to serve in the restaurant and run the bar just does not work, you were left waiting for drinks. At times during our week there were just three couples, so you could have the beach or one of the three pools all to yourself which was nice.

One of the sports/pool boys made an effort, the other never cleaned the beach or did anything it seems but sleep or watch the TV. The hotel in fact only seemed to function as a base for American eagle crew - who needed nothing but a bed for the night, you can't get much further from the airport so it seemed a little odd, guess it was cheap.

Only one member of staff sticks out for good reasons and I 've forgotten her name. She works in the bar during afternoon and evenings and changes her hair almost everyday - she was really friendly and a great laugh.

Guess it must be better in the main season, but during the quiet period it was probably best avoided. Must have been quite a place at one time with ten or so sailing boats available to use on the bay. All but one are now just wrecks littered around the back of the beach holding the rubbish and seaweed back, the one that still sails LEAKS!!

The highlight of our stay, meeting some lovely english and italian people that tried to make the best of what we had.........oh and before I forget watching the pelicans dive for food in the bay, that was amazing to watch. When the new Verrandah resort opens on the other side of the bay, I would reccomend trying there and before the noise scares the pelicans away get some great pictures

I stayed at Dian Bay with my husband, sister in law and her husband for a week over New Year Jan 2007.

The hotel was ok - our rooms were very basic but were cleaned every day and we had an ocean view room and nice balcony.

We had booked a "spa room" package through Virgin Holidays (at an extra cost) but upon attempting to book our treatments we were told that the spa could only fit us in for a couple of treatments each when in fact we had paid for 5 each. I arrived for my massage and was shown through to the treatment room, which was untidy and dirty, there was a huge pile of dirty towels thrown on the floor and the "therapist" used olive oil straight from the bottle - lovely! The hotel then claimed they had no record of us having paid for our spa treatments and tried to make us pay again - which we refused and the remainder of our treatments were cancelled - this was no great pity as the spa was dreadful - Virgin holidays have since refunded us for this error.

The a/c unit in our room was very loud and overheated one night setting off an alarm which we couldn't turn off - we called the front desk to ask them for help and the "security guard" was extremely reluctant to come and help us - he eventually turned up 30 mins later (3.30am!) by which time my husband had sorted the problem (by turning the machine off for the remainder of the night!).

The hotel is miles away from anything and it's around a 40 min drive to go out to eat - which we did a couple of times as although we were on the all inclusive package we wanted to eat out to see what the rest of the island had to offer and the hotel only has one restaurant with limited food options. We visited a resturant at English Harbour for a meal and also the Cocoa Bay hotel - both meals were fantastic and much better than anything we'd eaten at Dian Bay.

I would highly reccomend the around the island catamaran day trip which was excellent.

I would not return to this hotel as I found it too basic and did not like the isolated location but would return to Antigua as I thought it was a beautiful island.