One-bedroom rentals in Puerto Morelos: how to pick

Start with how many people are actually sleeping in the apartment, because in Puerto Morelos that question sorts everything else. Our one-bedroom apartments here sleep between four and six, all of them in the Porto Blu and Sole Blu buildings a short walk from the town square and the water. The bedroom count is the same across the lot. The bed configuration, the floor you land on, and what you see when you open the terrace door are not.

If you're two people, nearly all of these work and you should choose on view and layout. If you're four or five and two of you are getting a sofa bed in the living room, the choice narrows fast and it matters which one you pick.

The four to look at first

These four give you the clearest spread of what we have in town.

• Elegant Porto Blu Apartment 106, the Manatí model: a King bed, two full bathrooms, a dining table set for five, a furnished private terrace, and a desk credenza in the bedroom. It sleeps five. If someone is taking calls while the other swims, this is the layout that allows it.
• Apartment with Front-Facing View and Terrace, high in the building, sleeping six. Front-facing balcony, open-plan living and dining, air conditioning you set zone by zone.
• Comodidad y estilo en Puerto Morelos: two Queen beds in the one bedroom plus a double sofa bed, a dining table for six, two full bathrooms, sleeping five. The configuration for friends, or a parent travelling with kids, where nobody wants a King they have to share.
• Oasis en Planta Baja con Cama King y Jardín, ground floor, King bed, looking onto the interior garden. Sleeps four. No lift ride with the groceries, and the quietest of the four to sit in at the end of the day.

Three more one-bedrooms round out the set if those are taken: Spacious Getaway for 5 Guests on the fourth floor with two Queens and a dining area for six, Spacious 1-Bedroom Apartment Near the Beach, which also has a desk, and Confort y Estilo en Sole Blu 106.

If it's just the two of you

Take the ground floor. Oasis en Planta Baja gives a couple a King bed, two bathrooms (which sounds absurd for two people until one of you is getting ready for dinner and the other is rinsing salt off), and a view into the planted courtyard rather than out over the roofline. It's the one people extend in.

If you'd rather be up high and looking out, the front-facing apartment with the terrace sits on the upper floors with a balcony that catches the breeze off the water in the late afternoon. And if one of you is half-working the trip, Porto Blu 106 has a proper desk rather than a laptop balanced on the dining table, and long stays are allowed if a three-week February appeals.

Reading the sleeps number properly

Every one of these is a genuine one-bedroom. The extra heads go on sofa beds in the living room, and in Comodidad y estilo, on a second Queen inside the bedroom itself. That is a different trip from five people in three rooms, and worth being honest with yourself about before booking.

It works well for adults who are out all day and come back to sleep, for a couple travelling with one or two children, for two couples who know each other properly. It doesn't work for anyone who needs a door between them and the television. In that case go to two bedrooms: Penthouse Tucán has a Queen in one room and a King in the other, a jacuzzi on the terrace, and takes eight.

One structural thing in your favour: these one-bedrooms come with two full bathrooms. Five people, one bedroom, two showers is a far more civilised arrangement than the bedroom count suggests.

What's outside the door

Puerto Morelos is a small town that kept being a small town while everything around it grew. The square, the leaning lighthouse, the fish market, the artisans' market at Hunab Ku selling hammocks and honey from Mayan cooperatives. The apartments sit in the middle of that, so you can walk to dinner and walk back.

The reef is the reason most people come. Puerto Morelos Reef National Park runs just offshore, part of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, and the snorkel boats go out from the town pier with the local cooperative. Dive shops run further out to the C-56 wreck and to sites the captains call La Herradura, La Pared, Cuevones and Jardines. Ojo de Agua is the easy sandy entry if you just want to swim.

Inland, the Ruta de los Cenotes starts about ten minutes from town: Verde Lucero open to the sky, Kin Ha with its caves and zipline, La Noria full of stalactites. The Yaaxche-Alfredo Barrera Marín botanical garden sits just south on Highway 307 and is the second largest in Mexico, a serious morning if you like plants and a good one if you have children who need something that isn't a beach. Crococun, the interactive wildlife park, is close by too.

The practical argument for basing here: Cancún airport is roughly twenty-five minutes up Highway 307, the shortest transfer on this coast. Playa del Carmen is about half an hour south. Tulum is the long one, call it an hour and a half each way, which makes it a full day rather than an afternoon.

Before you book

The kitchens in these apartments are properly equipped, which changes what the trip costs. You can buy fish at the market and cook it, and the dining tables are set for five and six rather than two, so people actually eat together. In-unit laundry means you can pack for a week and stay three.

Four things to settle before you commit:

• The sofa-bed question. Confirm the exact bed arrangement for your party size on the listing page, not just the sleeps number.
• Dates and rates. Availability, nightly rates, minimum stays and cancellation terms all show live in the booking flow, and February reads very differently from September.
• Long stays. The one-bedrooms here allow them. If you're thinking of a month, ask us rather than booking a week at a time.
• Pets. These particular Puerto Morelos apartments don't accept them.

Book direct and there's no intermediary between you and the apartment, no hidden charges, and a concierge on the other end of a message. Tell us how many of you there are and roughly what you want to do, and we'll point you at the right door.