Hiya pal! Thanks for bringing your question about tax rates and charges to us here at planDisney. I love solving a good puzzle, so I built two carts on the Walt Disney World website: one with tickets and one with a hotel stay to test out my theory about which taxes apply to what types of purchases. Are you ready to see what I came up with? Let's go!
In my ticket only cart, I took the tax amount displayed at checkout and divided it by the total before tax. The resulting percentage was 6.5%, just like you have stated in your question. Then, I chose a room at
Disney's Coronado Springs Resort for a few nights as a room-only reservation with no tickets and performed the same calculation. The result I got this time was 12.5%: 6.5% for county tax and the additional 6% tourism tax for resorts. It appears that theme park tickets are not subject to the tourism tax like resort reservations.
But wait, there's a twist! After I did this experiment, I did a little digging here at planDisney to see what similar questions have been asked, and I came across
this answer from my fellow panelist Jenna. Since Disney World spans multiple counties, the tax rates may vary based on which county your resort is in. I looked at a county map online, then I built a new cart with a stay at
Disney's All-Star Sports Resort. When I divided the tax amount into the pre-tax subtotal the percentage was 13.5%: the 6% resort tax and a 7.5% county tax since this resort is in Osceola County versus Orange County for Coronado Springs. Wild!
Now that my financial sleuthing is complete, you can rest assured that your theme park tickets will not have the additional tourism tax charged at checkout. Please come back and see us if you need more vacation planning mysteries solved. I'll be waiting with my magnifying glass, Inverness cape coat, and deerstalker cap.
Signed, your own Basil of Baker Street,
Scott