Warner Bros. Studio tour – The making of Harry Potter

December 2017

My second time at the studios was even more magical than I thought it would have been. Since my visit in March 2014, they had expanded the sets, so much more was added – so we had to go back, especially for Christmas.

Location

The magic is located at: Warner Bros. Studio Tour London, Studio Tour Drive, Leavesden, WD25 7LR – in Watford. We planned our visits around a day in London, so it’s a quick jump on the train from London Euston to Watford Junction (which is the nearest station). It’s only a 20 minute ride between stations, so personally I think this is the best way to get there. Unless you drive to the studios like we did second time around, as there is free parking at the studios, and the car park is huge.

Located at Watford Junction are regular shuttle buses that take around 15 minutes to get to the studios. They run every 20 mins from 9.20 am and then have an additional service at 8.15 which has been put on for anyone attending the first tour at 9 am. A return ticket on the shuttle bus is £2.50, a single is £2.00.

Tickets

Tickets can be easily bought online. It states online that you must buy your tickets in advance – you wouldn’t believe how busy it gets on each tour.

Some may say the tickets are pricey. But I say it’s the best £40 you will ever spend!

Adult ticket (16+) £41.00, Child ticket (5 – 15) £33.00, Family ticket (2 adults and 2 children or 1 adult and three children) £132.00, 0 – 4 years FREE!

Arriving at the studios

When you book tickets you are told to arrive 20 minutes before the time you booked the tour for. I think they say this because the moment you walk in you want to take pictures, and you also have access to the cafe, shop and toilets beforehand.

When you arrive, you and your bags get security checked, so there will be a queue – but it moves fast.

The tour

The first moment your tour starts, you are in a big room filled with everyone on the same tour allocation, it is quite a big crowd – but don’t worry, this doesn’t spoil the tour for you, everyone takes different times to get around so you won’t find yourself standing around waiting for other people. In the first room, you are stood up and watch screens on either side of the wall. The screens are just showing you the hype of Harry Potter and the reasoning as to why it’s such a phenomenal franchise.

You are then walked into another room where you sit down and watch all the films back to back on a cinema screen … joke. Actually, you watch Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint (Harry, Hermoine and Ron) just talk about their time on set and about Harry Potter in general. Both screenings take no time at all, I would say 10-20 mins.

Then the moment you are waiting for, the screen moves, and the door to The Great Hall appears. If you are there to celebrate a birthday, you are able to help push the doors open, where you then enter The Great Hall.

Once entering The Great Hall you are then allowed to view everything at your own pace. This will likely take you anything from 2 to 4 hours.

The sets that you see are: the Great Hall, Goblet of Fire, Dark Arts, Hogwarts in the snow, Hogwarts Express, Forbidden Forest, Platform 9 3/4 and Diagon alley. I don’t want to say too much because it’s great to experience it without knowing.

Walking through the Great Hall, you get to see all the little things that make the films so brilliant, so much detail has gone into everything.

The Forbidden Forest is a new set. We got the first tour, so unfortunately we had to wait a little for the staff to set up and turn everything on to walk through the forest. Annoying as it was, it was actually quite good to build up the excitement. You see Aragog in his lair along with his spider friends. You could even take a bow toward Buckbeak – hopefully he doesn’t attack you like he attacked Malfoy!

Platform 9 3/4 is my favourite set, the train is unbelievable! You can walk along the carriages inside also – it is a tight squeeze, but you can have a nosy into the carriages, its amazing.

Please note that you can have your picture taken with the trolley going through Platform 9 3/4 for FREE – and there are multiple ones to use. I want to emphasis this, as if you are in Kings Cross Station, they have an amazing Harry Potter store, and you can have your picture taken with trolley there also, however you have to pay £9 for the priveledge. Here it’s FREE, remember that.

I thoroughly enjoyed this. Always wanted my picture taken here, so I jumped at the opportunity.

Diagon alley is just magical. You’ll want to take so many pictures. It’s so realistic, and surprisingly small.

Until you are here, I don’t think you would quite believe how much work has gone into these sets, especially at Diagon Alley, every minute detail is there, it must have took a stupendous amount of work.

Our second visit, we visited at Christmas (we wore our Harry Potter Christmas jumpers, we couldn’t not do that, right?). We got to see the Hogwarts castle in the snow! It was so pretty. You wouldn’t believe the scale of the castle, of course, it’s not to scale, but it’s still huge.

The outdoor court yard sees Privet Drive, the Night bus, the chess pieces, the bridge, Mr Weasley’s flying car and more.

My personal favourite is going into the Dursley’s home, they have set the living room up, with Harry’s acceptance letters flying about the place – clever!

Props are everywhere on the tour. You can see all of the great details, from potions class to the memory cabinet, and from Professor Umbridge’s office to Puking Pastilles at the joke shop. You have the chance to see absolutely everything.

Costumes are dotted about the tour too, many of which are located in sets. You can find costumes from Quidditch, ’19 years later’, the yule ball, Beauxbatons and so much more. Up close and personal, you don’t realise they are actual pieces of clothing rather than just ‘costumes’.

The designers are so talented.

SFX and VFX covers the likes of The Chamber of Secrets door, invisibility cloak, whomping willow and green screens. On the tour, you see the mechanics behind these marvellous creations.

Creatures in the films like the Basilisk, Buckbeak, Goblins and Aragog, are placed about the tour in the areas they are relevant too. And you get to see how some of the robotic creatures move first hand.

 

A tour isn’t a tour without the technical drawing details. The art department of the tour obviously shows you the fantastic Hogwarts castle, but you see all of the graphic designs, white card models and drawings that went in everything.

Photo Opportunities

Don’t worry, you do get chance to pretend you are on a broomstick or in the flying car, or on the Hogwarts Express.

After the Great Hall, you walk into a room full of sets, where you’ll find two green screens, one for flying on a broomstick (you get to put a cloak on) and one for flying in Ron’s Dads car.

You get the chance to do a couple of poses, and then take the pictures home to treasure forever.

When you are in Platform 9 3/4 they have another green screen for when you are on the Hogwarts Express. As you are sat in the carriages, there is a speaker directing you to act on the train for when things happen, like Dementors approaching the train. You then end with some amazing photos.

I had no idea what was going on, so take note, that you have to just listen to the guy as you are having your pictures taken. So act scared and act excited!

Aside to photos you have to pay for, there are loads more photo opportunities that you can take yourself that are equally as fun, like at Privet Drive, the Night Bus and with a Butterbeer…

Food and drink

Before you enter the tour, at the queue, there is a Starbucks Coffee you can get a drink and snack from, or you can go to the massive cafe they have at the entrance where you can get hot and cold food and drink.

Throughout the tour, there isn’t much food available – but to be fair, you are too immersed in the tour to even think about food and drink. Until you reach around half way that is, and the Butterbeer comes calling!

Yes you heard me right, Butterbeer. It’s delicious! Especially the cream on top. You can purchase it with or without a souvenir Butterbeer mug. I always get the mugs, so between us, me and Rich have six!

This is located just after Platform 9 3/4. You walk into a cafeteria there where you can purchase food and drink, and have a sit down at the tables. Here you look out into a courtyard where you can see what you’re in for next. The night bus, the flying car, Privet drive…

The Shop

The shop is everything you can imagine and more! It’s not just your typical merchandise shop, it’s like you’ve just walked into a shop off Diagon Alley.

Prepare yourself to want to buy everything you lay your eyes on, but be wary that it’s quite pricey … as you can imagine.

Overall

It’s quite incredible the amount of detail and work that goes into the Harry Potter franchise. You can see the effort by watching the films. Visiting the studios opens your eyes even more, not only do you get to see all the costumes, props, set etc. but you learn about them also, whether it’s the research that went into it or how they made certain things like the snow on the castle. It’s so fascinating.

If you love Harry Potter, how have you not been yet!