Trip to Warner Bros Studio Tour - The Making of Harry Potter
Hey!
A couple of weekends ago I was in South East London with my parents for a family Wedding, which was an amazing day and while we were in that part of the country we decided to take a trip to the Warner Bros Studio Tour. This was my third time but each time there's always something I didn't see the previous time.
This is a pretty long post with lots of pictures, but once I started typing I couldn't stop!
Currently there is a special feature for Goblet of Fire until the 23rd September 2018, which includes a Special Effects demonstration showing how the Triwizard Champions’ parchments were expelled from the Goblet, you can also get a souvenir parchment like the ones from the goblet. There is also the Prefects’ Bathroom tap with the multicoloured water, Tom Riddle’s grave and the Beauxbatons carriage on the Hogwarts castle model.
We were on the 9am tour and stayed in the Holiday Inn Express St Albans the night before which was a good place to stay, it is fairly new and the room was great, it had plenty of sockets to charge everything! We left in plenty of time to ensure we didn't get stuck in any rush hour traffic with it being early in the day which wasn't too bad and arrived at 8:30.
The first thing I noticed as we drove into the car park was a very large Harry Potter sign on a building I didn't remember last time which once we parked up I realised there was building works. There is currently a temporary entrance which is where this large sign is and it seemed to be built on what was part of the car park. After the thorough bag searches and body metal scans we walked through a long walkway which brings you in to the original entrance through the Lobby Cafe. A bit of searching on Twitter has told me that they are building an extension and a larger entrance which has me intrigued what the extension will be for! Around the barriers for the building works it was covered in wanted signs and numerous Harry Potter related posters which looked cool and the walkway had footprints all down it along with numerous quotes which I thought looked great.
I was quite surprised comparing the three times I've been, this time there were a lot more people dressed up in robes throughout the tour than I remembered from before! We then joined the queue, in the centre of the queue there was a large triwizard cup lit up which looked awesome.
When it finally got to our tour time went into the first room and stood to watch the first brief film about how Harry Potter took over the world before getting escorted into another room to watch another quick film about the making of Harry Potter. After this finished the screen lifted up to reveal the the big doors that lead to the Great Hall.
I love walking into the great hall and as it was the Goblet of Fire event, stood at the front of the great hall was the Goblet of Fire, after a bit of wandering around the hall and looking at the different houses costumes and uniforms everyone gathered at the front around the Goblet of Fire for a demonstration of the flame turning blue and red as well as a piece of parchment flying out which someone caught. The other side of the Goblet of Fire was Fred and George Weasley sat on the floor dressed with their white hair and beards which they received after they attempted to put their names in the Goblet. It was good to see something a bit different in the Great Hall, although you couldn't get as close to the Hogwarts staff at the very front as you normally can which didn't bother me too much as I had seem them before but I imagine some people might have been disappointed by that.
We then moved on through to the next part of the tour which features a lot of the room sets, props and costumes. There was also the prefects' bathroom tap in this room which looked awesome with the multi coloured running water. I love seeing all of the small props and the detail in them, the Potions classroom has so much detail with all of the potion bottles and ingredients all being individually named.
In this section there was the other Goblet of Fire and the Dragon Egg from the Tri-Wizard cup which you could see open, I could be completely forgetting but I'm sure previously I hadn't seen it open it was just on display closed. Walking further around the room stood Tom Riddle's Grave which I'm sure used to be outside, it was good to be able to see it up close and walk around it.
Me being in a total world of my own totally forgot until this point that I hadn't seen the pieces of parchment from the Goblet of Fire that you could take home as a souvenir. I ended up walking back round to the exit of the Great Hall until I eventually found it. They were in between the two doors as you exit, pretty easy to miss, as as you walk out of the Great Hall there are different boards to read in front of you and then you follow it down to the left and around. But I eventually found them and managed to pick one up. I took a lot of pictures in this room a selection of which you can see below.
We then entered the forbidden forest, I love the way the floor is a bit squishy and how big the tree trunks are. It is quite realistic and I love that there is Buckbeak, Aragog and a Glowing Patronus all within the forest. After walking through the forest and a small shop with items relating to the forest we made it to Platform 9 3/4. This room is pretty big and it's great that you can actually go onto the Hogwarts Express. Each carriage is decorated for each film with the different props in each one, my favourite is the one for Prisoner of Azkaban with the handprint on the window where Ron had his hand when the Dementors came.
As you walk out of Platform 9 3/4 and towards the Backlot Cafe there is a section on the right with more props, such as Books and Letters. I didn't spend as much time reading everything in this section as I could have done. Looking back at my pictures a couple of thing I didn't see on the day was the letter Lily wrote to Sirius and an O.W.L Exam Paper so I'm glad I was able to read this section on the pictures I took. There was also Ron's Howler, Potion Bottles, School Books and Weasley Products.
Annoyingly it rained pretty much all day so as we were sat in the Backlot Cafe getting a drink and snack, it still hadn't stopped. It was a quick trip outside to the Backlot area, we made a dash to 4 Privet Drive and went through there, I love the setup of all the letters in the house! The Hogwarts Bridge was shut as it was wet so after a quick look around outside we then went onto the next part of the tour.
This next section of the tour is mainly about Creatures, there are various different Goblin Heads, a lifesize Buckbeak and Aragog. We then walked around into Diagon Alley which I love, I just wish you could go into the shops! The items in the shop windows are so detailed and I could spend so long looking in the windows of each shop.
The next section is the Art Department where there is technical drawings and white card models, it's cool to see what happened before set construction began. Like everything on the tour, the detail in these is great to see.
Walking into the model room is just amazing, I don't think you can ever tire of walking into this room. The size of it as you walk in, I always seem to forget just how big it is. I love that it changes from day to night and all the little lights that come on. The Beauxbatons Carriage looked great and was a good addition.
The last part of the tour is the Wand Room which contains a wand box for every cast and crew member involved in Harry Potter, the last time I went to the tour I spent quite a while trying to spot a lot of the different actors and I was surprised that I could remember a lot of where they were!
After we finished the tour was the shop, this is my downfall, I had already prepared myself that I would buy a lot. I had actually already bought a Hogwarts Railways keyring from the Platform 9 3/4 shop. The first item from the main shop I picked up was a Snape post card, Snape is my favourite character and I think this was the only Snape item I saw. I also picked up two other keyrings, a Hufflepuff Quidditch keyring and a Triwizard Cup. I bought a pin of the Honeydukes sign, I love the detail in all the keyrings and pins and I could have bought so many. There was a yule ball section and I bought a hanging decoration. The last few items I bought was a chocolate frog, you can't go without buying one of these can you? (I got Gilderoy Lockharts card) a Honeydukes Plate and an Umbrella. The umbrella sounds so random but I had my eye on one on the online shop which had Harrys Hogwarts letter carried by Hedwig on the inside but the shop had one with the marauders map on the inside which I loved.
Apologies some of the pictures aren't the greatest quality but I just used my phone and especially with some of the lighting such as in the Model room it was hard to get a decent picture.
I hate to think how many times I said detailed in this post, but it just sums up the whole tour. I had such a great day and I'm sure I will be going back again at some point, I'd love to go to Hogwarts in the Snow one day. To find out more and book tickets visit https://www.wbstudiotour.co.uk/
Hope you enjoyed
Lyndsey xx
