I went to Fasano hotel in Punta del Este this summer (January 2012) a couple of nights and I must say I was surprised.
The place is awesome. The hotel is in a farm located 20 minutes away from "La Barra" beach, and it has 20 luxurios and spacious boungalous.
The pool is wrapped with big rocks wich makes it out of the standard.
Prices are high, so I recommend the hotel just if you are willing to pay more for a stay at Punta.

Having just arrived from the very well run Park Hyatt in Buenos Aires the Fasano in Punta del Este sadly seemed very amateurish in comparison. This was by far our most mixed hotel experience ever. Especially when you take into account the steep prices of this facility. The hotel and its surroundings are physically beautiful and impressive. Great interior design and architecture located in a lovely landscape just outside Punta del Este. We stayed in a well appointed two room bungalow (nr. 15) with a fantastic view of the grounds. Even though the pool was somewhat smaller than what we expected from photos it was beautiful and pleasantly warm. We absolutely loved the amount of wildlife we encountered, numerous colourful birds, hares and one cute (non smelly) skunk. The bed and linen was perfect. Super fast Wi-Fi, Very good A/C, nice water pressure in bathroom and to us the absolutely best part of the experience was the Fasano Restaurant which had stellar service, food and wine.

If the rest of the hotel had been run like the Fasano Restaurant, five stars would not have been enough. Sadly we experienced too many problems. The biggest being cleaning the second being service. When we arrived a flower vase with half rotten water but no flowers was standing by the wash basins in the bathroom and the room was simply not clean. Neither was the Las Piedras restaurant, which is where the breakfast is served. It was dusty and had filthy floors. The carpet in our living room contained pebbles and olive pips and we found half a can of olive oil half hidden behind the sofa. The shower room had a mouldy smell. In the outside areas we saw too much trash lying around and nobody seemed to care. Which just seemed plain weird and in stark contrast to the beautiful landscape and what we expected of a Fasano Hotel.

In the pool area we saw a member of staff passing a plastic cup lying on the ground about ten times without ever picking it up. We were the only guests in the pool area and the guy had absolutely nothing to do. He just did not seem to care. In fact the service in the pool area was a big let down. They did very little to make people feel welcome. On one occasion we had a drink in the pool bar and observed how the staff completely ignored a family, in fact the only people to use the pool at the time, neither offering them towels nor mattresses for their sun loungers. Weirdly enough the mattresses had not been distributed even though it was a sunny afternoon. We had the same experience the day before. It seemed that the hotel wasted the opportunity to earn money as the staff were so little welcoming that we could hardly be bothered to get in contact with them in order to purchase the drinks, coffees and snacks that we would normally have ordered being poolside. On these occasions we wondered about what seemed like a complete lack of hotel management.

In fact we never saw a member of staff who even resembled management. It seemed that the hotel (excluding the fantastic Fasano Restaurant) was run by a big crowd of young people with little or absolutely no experience. Please forgive the prejudges but we got the feeling that most of the staff we encountered were (probably) privileged kids on a summer job. They were well mannered, handsome, friendly and seemed quite aware that they were working at a very cool resort, sadly for us however they were more or less clueless about how to provide the service that one would normally expect at a hotel of this price level.

Food at the Fasano resort ranged from okay to fabulous. Foodwise the breakfast was okay but service was slightly wobbly. We ate (sadly as the only guests) one evening at the Las Piedras restaurant and the food and wine we had was excellent and the waiter was charming. The rest of the dinners we had at the Fasano Restaurant which in every respect was a perfect experience. It seemed that quite a few locals came there to dine and no wonder.

All in all the Fasano Las Piedras was a mixed experience and the overall impression was form over function. The place had tons of potential but poor execution. Would we go there again? - probably if we felt sure that they took cleanliness a little more seriously. However knowing full and well about the strength of the Fasano Brand in South America we cannot help wonder what went wrong in Punta del Este.

My partner and I stayed for 3 nights in a bungalow suite. The natural environment around the hotel is amazing, and conducive to taking contemplative long walks. There is no beach, but the cacti and gentle hills are great. It was truly relaxing and a totally different type of place than your average resort. Our bungalow was wonderful, with a mesmerizing view out the back porch. It was extremely comfortable with 2 large TVs and very comfortable furniture and nice amentities. There was a plush white fur rug in the living room area that was fantastic to walk on barefoot. So soft! The staff (with one exception written about below) were all very friendly and attentive to our needs. We had several treatments at the spa which were all nice, and the spa itself was in a beautifully designed building. The restaurants were also great with fantastic staffs and good food.

The reason I give 4 instead of 5 stars for this magical place are several. Even though the restaurants are both great, it is very difficult to get any light simple food at the resort, which is what we craved after a few days of heavier cuisine. The informal restaurant has basically a scaled down menu of the more formal restaurant so it does not really offer much of a difference from the formal restaurant. It would have been nice to have had the option to order empanadas, gormet pizza, etc... for lunch next to the pool or in the informal restaraunt. The treatments at the spa while relaxing were overpriced even in comparison to treatments at other international resorts at the the same price level. It would have also been nice if the hotel would volunteer a list of optional excursions that it could help you arrange as the resort is in a relatively secluded location.

Finally we went to the lounge our last full day and had horrendous service. The lounge was barely occupied and fully staffed. It took 5 minutes for a menu to be presented and then we sat around for 10 minutes waiting to order. Finally after seeing several people who arrived later than we did have their orders taken, we walked out. At this point a man in a jacket who had been fluffing pillows (who I assume was the lounge manager) followed us out and asked if we would like to order. I told him that frankly we no longer had time as we just wanted to stop in for a quick drink before dinner and that I found it was very rude that we were ignored. His response was to shrug his shoulders and walk back in. With the amount of money we were paying per night this was not an acceptable response especially when many of the people who were being waited on while we were being ignored did not even appear to be resort guests. In a place of this calibre, I would expect any staff member (not just a manager) to make an inquiry about if we were guests to see if at a minimum a written apology could be slipped under our door while we were at dinner to smooth things over. We did not complain to the general manager as this is not our style and we didn't want to spend the short amount of time we had left dwelling on an unpleasant experience.

Overall we really enoyed the Fasano and would stay again. In fact, we have agreed that if we are anywhere even vaguely close in South America we will try to go back to the resort for a whole week. Other than the single incident in the lounge, all of the other things I cite as things that I would change come out to be slight small suggested improvements rather than true complaints. The architecture is amazing, the staff outside of the lounge is great, and natural environment is unique and wonderful.