Asara Wine Estate & Hotel — Restaurant in Stellenbosch Local Municipality

My husband and I recently stayed at the hotel for two nights and we were disappointed to say the least. I feel I was misled by the photos online and the recent, 5 star Google reviews posted by others. I hate to leave a review of less than 4 stars anywhere, but I don’t want other holiday goers to make the same mistake that I did by staying at Asara. To start with the positive, the hotel is undoubtedly situated in a beautiful setting that immediately transports you to a place of peace and tranquility. The grounds are beautifully maintained. The staff were all very friendly and kind throughout our stay. I rate the hotel 3 stars at best because the staff did try their best to make our experience enjoyable. Notably, communication with the Reservations team (Requel in particular) prior to our stay was absolutely top-notch, and perhaps why I had such great expectations for the hotel. With all that said, it seems Asara as a whole could use a massive facelift and is in need of various upgrades throughout the property. Signs around the grounds were faded, exterior walls on the buildings were stained, the pool tiles were old and the bottom of the pool looked dirty. There are prominent parts of the hotel building that are sitting empty and vacant which just creates for a bit of a strange feel as you walk by them. I gather there may be some rooms that are more recently renovated than others as the rooms advertised on the hotel’s website look newer and more luxurious than the room we stayed in. Our room had sinks that were clogged, a shower that flooded the bathroom and onto the carpet after being used for 5 minutes, a safe that was locked and unusable, and a toilet that looked quite scary and that it did not belong at all in the room that we paid for (see photos). Furthermore we had an issue with noisy crickets in our room, especially at night. The hotel staff told us that we are on a wine farm and that a cricket in the room should be expected. This I can understand - but we experienced 4-6 large crickets on a daily basis, including one that woke us up at 4am because it was making noise in the air con vent. We have stayed at other wine estates in this area and have never come across the issue of having so many insects in our room! Lastly, while the staff were all very kind, there were some issues that I would not expect from a hotel that currently has a 4.4 rating on Google. We had arranged various transports through the hotel, and our very first car never showed because the driver “forgot” (to be fair, we did not have an issue with this again). The hotel kindly left us a complimentary small bottle of Asara wine in our room upon arrival, but there was no bottle opener. When we called to ask for an opener, we were brought one by housekeeping, only to be told by the staff member to please return the opener once we were done because they needed it back. Why is there a shortage of bottle openers on a wine farm?! And why leave a bottle of wine without an opener to begin with? Lastly, our room did not have a hair dryer, and when we called to have one delivered, the one that arrived was broken. Another was promptly delivered to us, but a hair dryer in a room is a basic amenity I would have expected “an award-winning wine estate and luxury hotel” to carry. Asara has a lot of potential and really lovely staff, so I do hope that they can make some serious changes in order to keep customers happy...

From the very first minute, entering via the immaculate tree lined driveway, you are aware that you are visiting somewhere very special. Asara is a wonderful experience, made even more wonderful by the staff throughout the estate. As we arrived we were greeted by the 2 amazing attendants (I think one was called James- they were both from Malawi), these 2 guys were fantastic, a real credit to Asara, nothing was too much trouble. ||The scenery here is out of this World and as you walk across the courtyard you immediately feel yourself relax. This could be Provence in spring, the smell of lavender and herbs just adding to the whole experience. ||In the afternoon we spent some time around the pool which was lovely, really peaceful, the pool was lovely and cool, very clean, plenty of towels and they had a bar with a barman on call all day, I appreciated this level of service, even with just a handful of people around the pool he was always ready to serve a drink. ||The room was lovely and spacious, the balcony offered amazing views across the lake to the mountains and offered lots of space and comfortable chairs. The rooms were clean and the bathroom was big and luxurious (shower was huge). This was a room you could relax in, the only downside on our visit was a family close by with 2 kids screaming with the TV full blast. My advice would be keep this wing child free, this place is big enough to do that without ostracising anyone. ||We visited the restaurant 3 times (Lunch, Dinner and Breakfast), the food was superb and the service was really good. I have to say I was impressed. If I was being really picky I did feel that some of the dishes were a little odd. I had the salmon starter which was served with wasabi puree, pickled cucumber etc. I imagined it to be Japanese flavours/style but it was actually just a large fillet of salmon, cooked slightly under (which i'm fine with by the way, I prefer it this way rather than over cooked and dry) with a wasabi paste that had no flavour, absolutely no bite, very little if any wasabi in it, the cucumber was pickled with vinegar (i'd expected Tsukemono, the sightly sweeter Japanese pickled veg). I had a Honey Pork with no honey, I think the honey may have been on the pork before it was cooked but the sweetness had gone, surrounded by pears and bean paste and a shallot, it was just a strange taste combo, personally it didn't work for me but I appreciated the ambition. ||We did the wine tasting with Kalvin, that was great and well worth doing, would highly recommend. ||Overall we had a great visit and would definitely come here again (in fact we are already planning our next trip). I was concerned about a few negative reviews but I have no idea what they were going on about. I am lucky enough to have visited well over 300 luxury resorts around the World and this place is easily in my top 10%. Asara is a relaxing, beautiful resort with amazing staff and just 5 mins from...

This review is for the wine estate not the hotel. I wanted to have my 21st at asara. Clearly y’all care more about international customers and not local. You can benefit a lot more financially if you start accommodating us locals but I assume you don’t need us therefore you don’t care. The only problem was the customer service. Y’all don’t get back to your customers. Literally spoke with two people made an appointment the lady canceled on the day and said someone else would assist clearly no one was aware or prepared for the appointment and it felt rushed and we understand how busy one can be but when making an appointment you expect to be prioritised for a few minutes at least. So do better with your customer service. Until next time.(never)

Edited since I can’t respond to your response to my review I don’t really appreciate your response. I see you don’t like taking accountability. I don’t even have a problem with Asara. It’s beautiful and you have a lot to offer and I would’ve loved to explore more but you have now completely lost me as a customer which I’m sure does not bother you at all anyway. I have a recording of the phone call I had with Yolandi and she told me that she’ll get back to me the next day at 2 with a quote and she never did.I left it there because it was my second attempt with y’all. The first, like I mentioned was when I made an appointment now I do apologise but I forgot the ladies name I think it was Jennifer maybe. she canceled on me which is ok, no big deal but clearly no one was aware of my appointment because the guy who assisted me was in a rush and I could see that he was busy but still very polite so no problem with him it wasn’t his fault (bald and maybe a moustache) I kinda expected Jennifer to get back to me but she never did coz the guy said she will follow up. I just had very high expectations and I don’t think you can blame me for that coz have y’all seen Asara? you’d expect quality service especially for the insane prices(don’t even try to deny how expensive y’all are lol) at least have good service to back up everything else. Planning an event is not easy or cheap as the customer you are out and about looking for the perfect place to host your event so I do apologise if you expected me as a customer to do more. Maybe I could’ve bothered Yolandi and Jennifer and reminded them about me even tho it’s their job to kinda do tht but ok I understand how busy you all must be but please don’t even try to pin this on me as if I was the one to not correspond. If Yolandi or whoever called they could’ve left an email because people are busy. But i don’t know why I’m here defending myself like a...