Harry Potter Warner Brothers Studio Tour London

I recently went to London for a couple of days and thought I would do some touristy things for a change as usually when I visit I don't have any plans, I just do some shopping and eat out at a couple of restaurants.  This time I wanted to be more of a tourist so I found a few things I fancied doing, planned ahead by booking tickets as I'm not a great fan of queueing (I don't have the tolerance) and anything that helps me bypass a queue is a must. Anyway this post is about my visit to the Harry Potter Warner Brothers Studio tour near London.

It was very easy to get to, just a 15 minute train journey from London Euston to Watford Junction.  I used my Two Together railcard which I posted about here,  so it only cost £13.50 for 2 people.  When you arrive at Watford Junction train station you just walk out to the front and there is a bus station to the left and if you are lucky the Harry Potter bus is waiting to pick you up (you can't miss it as it has Harry Potter pictures all over it).  Unfortunately, as we arrived the bus was just leaving (typical), but we only waited about 10 minutes for the next one to arrive.  It was only £2 for a return journey. It's about 15 minutes to the studio and the journey seemed to go pretty quickly so wasn't too bad.  When we got there we just had to show our email confirmation to get our tickets for the tour.  My sister and I decided to do the audio tour which also included a souvenir tour book.  This cost £40.95 which is expensive but I would say worth the money.  

Now I should say I like Harry Potter but I'm not a mad fan, I've probably watched each movie once and I haven't read all the books yet, but I love movies in general and the chance to see backstage is something I love to do.  That's one of the reasons I visited LA last year.

I won't put too much information about the actual tour as I don't want to spoil it for people if they haven't had a chance to visit it yet, but I will add some photos below so please avoid if you don't want to know anything about the tour.

I would thoroughly recommend this tour as its was great to see behind the scenes and see the actual sets that they used.  The Great Hall was fantastic and it was amazing to think they had filmed there.  There were props and costumes and anything and everything that was part of Harry Potter felt like it was there.

The Great Hall

Costumes in The Great Hall

There was also props outside in the backlot where there was the chance to get a photo on the Knight bus, walk along a section of the Hogwarts  Bridge, sit in Ron's Ford Anglia and knock on the door of 4 Privet Drive.  I also tried the Butterbeer which I didn't like as it didn't taste of anything and it was very weak (was there something wrong with mine?).

All in all I had a really great time and would recommend it to anyone that's a Harry Potter fan or loves movies in general.  It was fun to visit the sets, like walking along Diagon Alley and realise how small some of them were, like the dormitory where they all slept.  We also saw the different costumes from all the films. They even had information on the real animals that appeared in the films.

The boys dormitory

The Death Eaters

The audio tour was great as you can walk around at your leisure and when you get to the relevant set press play and it tells you more information about it (there are numbers at each point, so that you can listen to the right part of the audio wherever you are in the tour).  It was really handy to have someone telling you the information as you reached each part of the tour so you know what it was about and which part of the film it appeared in.

In the very last part of the tour there is a large scale model of Hogwarts that is amazing.  I think it was built for the first film if I remember rightly.

This is a must see tour and if you are ever in London I would recommend the short trip outside of London to see this.

Look out for my competition to win a brand new Harry Potter Souvenir Guide Book.

Have you visited the tour?  What did you think?

Leighlee

I bought the tickets with my own money