This was the third time I have been to the Warner Bros. Studios to go on the Harry Potter Studio Tour, the last time was two years ago so thought I should go to do some more filming there.
I left just after lunch and the journey was far quicker than I expected with no traffic jams, so much so a few miles out I stopped in a service station car park for a while. After this I decided to go to the studio but waited in their car park for a while, before going in an hour early.
Whilst I was waiting inside, I went to the Chocolate Frog café and got myself an Eton Mess and strawberry milkshake, it was way overpriced at £6.99 and quite small but tasted nice.
I finally started my tour at 18.30 by walking past the cupboard under the stairs before seeing a short film about the making of the movies. Then you go through the large doors of Hogwarts and enter the Great Hall, this part of the tour has a guide and they explained about the feast that was on the table and how it would need to be replaced everyday during filming. Before they talked about the teachers costumes that appeared at the head of the hall. They then let us look around and take pictures before we needed to move to the next section so another group could enter.
The next part was the interior sets and is the biggest section of the tour, here you can see things like the Gryffindor Common Room, Dumbledore’s office and the Potions classroom. After this was the Dark Arts section with a mock up of the Ministry of Magic corridors.
You then walk through the Forbidden Forest which had several animatronics of spiders and Petronas. After this was the Platform 9 ¾ section where you could have a photograph pushing a luggage trolley through the wall as well as the Hogwarts Express. I stopped here for a little while to look around the shop and buy a chocolate frog.
Then it was time for me to get some dinner at the Backlot Café. I got a cheeseburger and Butter Beer, it was expensive but tasted good.
After I had eaten, I went into the backlot, on display here is the night bus, Privet Drive, the Potter Cottage and the Hogwarts Bridge. Then I went back inside to the Creature Effects section, here they had a number of displays including Hedwig the Owl and the small frail Voldermort.
Next was the full set from Gringotts bank both before and after the Dragon had destroyed it, there was even a little show with the dragon and fire and smoke. This was followed by the Vaults where all the treasure is stored.
You then walk into Diagon Alley where it has all the stores such as Olivander’s Wand Shop and Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. I almost had the whole street to myself and there was no one here.
It was then into the Art Department and time to wrap up the tour, this section contained the drawings, paintings and models from the movies and this culminates in the Model Room where a scale model of Hogwarts is on display and shown in different lighting situations.
And that was the end of the tour, you walk through a wand room where everyone who appeared in the films has their name on a wand box. This then leads into the largest Harry Potter store in the world, after looking around I left the studio and drove to my hotel for the night, the Travelodge Borehamwood Studio Way.
