My family and I spent 2 different nights on June 28, 2007 and July 9, 2007. We booked on Hostal World and received a note from Dunja(a co-owner) the same afternoon encouraging us to spend $10 extra for air-conditioning and TV which, unlike some inexperienced travelers, we knew that you never rent a room without air-conditioning on the Yucatan Peninsula. We drove more than 2500k during our two weeks and would have been miserable without air-conditioning period. One recent reviewer appears to be a novice traveler who would of been more confortable staying home. It is obvious that her evaluation is not even close to any of the other several favorable and accurate descriptions. Caracol is an outstanding priced establishment with very tasty food, extremely gracious hosts and my wife and son felt it was one of the cleanest hotels that they have ever stayed in(both wife and son have been to more than 125 countries worldwide and have stayed in places that we could not recommend-such as the Elvira in Santo Domingo, DR-see my review on this site). We never saw a swamp anywhere near the hotel.
It is scary to see amateur travelers so ill-prepared to travel in the tropics. The rooms were more than adequate for the price and extremely clean with a refrigerator which was nice to chill our water and soft drinks. The air-conditioner was new and worked extremely well which made sleeping such a pleasure. I am a member of this site and would highly recommend this place and yes you do need airconditioning in the Yucatan.

This was a clean, bright happy place to stay. Dunja and Gabriel (the owners and Attila the greeting dog) were nice, relaxed and great hosts. The breakfasts were homemade yumminess, the fondue is yummy. The rooms are simple but more than comfortable.... the room we stayed in (no AC) had great cross breezes from the windows and the ceiling fan was pleasant. True to the theme of caracol, there were decorative shells all over--as voltives, as wall art, as window hangings. A very quick walk from caracol brings you to the downtown square and the beach of puerto morelos. We highly recommend this place and would certainly stay here again in future visits.

We reserved one night here for $40 and paid an addional $10 for breakfast (cash only paid upon arrival). The hotel is located a few blocks from the beach which has very little breeze and close to what appeared to be a dirty swamp. It was very hot and humid and we made the mistake of not renting an air conditioned room. Upon arriving we were pleasantly greeted by the Dunya and Gabriel. They sat in front of the restaurant smoking cigarettes most of the time we were there. The music was nice and the restaurant very clean and nicely decorated. We went to our room and were dissappointed at what we saw. The room was tiny, musty and hot with only one picture on the wall, nothing compared to the nice decor downstairs. We attempted to switch after smelling the neighbors outhouse when we opened one of the few small windows in the tiny room. We tired to swicth rooms but the air conditioned rooms were unavailiable. We went to town to look for a dinner spot and were told about Bodas Restaurant which was very good, the duck pate was delicious and included with the meal, great service and ambiance. We noticed that Bodas was also a hotel called Hacienda Morelos. They had one room availiable for $67 which was very large with air conditioning, on the ocean with a full view and a refreshing pool right outside our door. We returned to Caracol and informed them that we had booked another room elsewhere with air-conditioning and we would return for breakfast. Upon returning the next morning we were served delicious watermelon juice,coffee, bread with jam and butter and a little fruit. Again, we were dissappointed compared to the awsome full meal that we could have gotten elsewhere for $10. I would not recommend this hotel and am bewildered how it got such good ratings by other travellers.

Could'nt have had a better ending in Mexico then in laid back Puerto Morelos with my wonderful hosts Dunja and Gabriel.Thanks and I hope to be back soon.