I was gifted a pass to the Warner Bros. Studio tour in London, Watford for my birthday this year and so I thought I would give a review account of the whole experience and include some bits that were in the tour.
At the time I went the new forbidden forest attraction had recently opened so I was really excited to see it. As you walk in you have a cafe, the digital tour pickup point and a baggage area (useful if you have suitcases) Once you have gotten what you need, you then join a queue that leads into the tour. You can even see Harry’s staircase room as you wait. Though, I must add the lighting in this area isn’t the best for photographs, as shown below.
Eventually after queuing for about 20 minutes or so you enter a large, relatively dark room. This is lit up by the various Harry Potter film posters from all over the world, which is pretty cool to see. Then after a short film and welcome chat you move to a cinema room.
Now, not too give too much of the magic away from it I won’t be going into detail about exactly how the tour continues, but I will say this, the next place you arrive at is the grand hall.
The grand hall was everything I imagined and more, the decorations have really been done well and you can fully picture yourself in the film as you enter this place. In fact, this was probably my second favourite place in the tour. My only slight annoyances here were the fact that they hadn’t attempted to do anything to the ceiling to cover the scaffolding, obviously I didn’t expect a magical sky but perhaps a few LED lights that mimic stars may have been nice. Also, you only have a limited time to look around before you have to leave to allow the next tour group in.
This was a slight bit annoying because obviously you may want to take a lot of photographs or videos in there before you leave, but you can have the option of coming back in after the next tour group has entered.
The next place you enter, like many of the areas on the tour, is a room packed full of set parts and film decorations. You can see the moving stair cases, the Gryffindor common rooms, the outside of Dumbledor’s study and Snape’s potions lab.
This makes it great for photographs and you can spend however much time you would like in there, which is something you need to do in order to see everything. Also, if you are anything like me and have a tendency to get distracted by the big scenery sets that don’t forget to also go back and look at some of the smaller things, such as the snitch, Slughorn’s hourglass and the Triwizard cup
There are also various opportunities to have professional and non-professional photographs taken. I would definitely say have a professional photograph done, because most of them are taken whilst you are either pretending to fly a broom stick or riding the Hogwarts express, so it is a fun experience to take part in. However, for me personally I felt the prices for these photographs were way too high.
It costs £14 for one photograph, which if you go on the broom stick means you have to buy two if you are with someone as those photographs are solo pictures. They kindly lower the second picture price to £7, but after spending £14 on one, I am not too sure I would want to add an additional amount to that. However, as with all these types of places high priced photographs were to be expected.
I just wish they had been a slight bit lower so that I could have brought home a memento of my day, but sadly I don’t have a pile of gold coins lying in a vault like Harry. This was a shame for me because, like an idiot I hadn’t fully charged my camera battery, so half way though my camera died and sadly I am a muggle with no magical skills to revive my camera, therefore my phone camera had to suffice.
Next up was the highly anticipated forbidden forest, which was over with in about 1 minute. It was pretty easy to miss this out too as they warned spider haters to stay away. So there I was expecting to see some real life triantula’s, however, they were all fake. I mean don’t get me wrong, the scenery was excellent and it really did transport you to the forest, but was it an essential thing to see? no.
Thankfully, platform 9 & 3/4 was on the other side and this hugely made up for the forest disappointment. There were a couple of train experiences, one included getting inside the surprisingly small train and having a look at the carriages that the cast grew up filming in and the other was a professional photo-shoot, which included a lot of green screen effects. But the best bit? Obviously the trolleys half emerged into the platform walls, what a great photograph they made!
Afterwards, we went and tried some not so nice tasting butter beer that was presented in one of those lovely see-through plastic cups (you pay extra for a nice cup) I proceeded with the tour. The next part was great as you got to get some fresh air and if unlike when I went it is sunny it is a great place to stay and explore for a little while and let the kids run free.
Sadly, we reached the outdoor section just as the heavens decided to open. Luckily for us, there wasn’t too many things to see outside other than, a part of the covered wooden bridge-which Neville Longbottom blew up in Deathly hallows part 2, the Dursley’s Privet drive house of which only the ground floor rooms are available to walk around, the night bus and Hagrid’s vehicles- which are pretty entertaining to go in.
After this you get to see some bits of characters come to life, including the elf’s heads (which may I add are a little creepy) Our lovable character Dobby, the dying version of Voldemort in the 8th film and giant Thestral (yes you can see this one).
However, my favourite room in the whole tour had to be Diagon Alley. This place is seriously worth the money even though it is all for the looks. They have loads of the popular shops there including Ollivanders, Honeydukes and even Gringotts bank! Honeydukes is of course the one that stands out the most though as it is not only brightly coloured but the statue on top of it also moves its top hat, just like the film!
To finish the tour, you enter a room full of artwork and model statues that were made by the curators of the film. One of which is an entire miniature scale of Hogwarts. This was for sure, the coolest model I have ever seen in my life! If you are a hardcore Harry Potter fan then you definitely need to see it. Just be careful about the lighting in there as it is pretty dark and so photographs taken in there would probably require a light source, such as a flash or a light LED on your camera.
Overall, I would definitely recommend going to the Warner Bros. Studio tour in London if you are visiting the UK or are a resident who is a Harry potter fan. I probably wouldn’t recommend buying the photographs as if you have your own camera and can take a decent photograph, then that is just as good and it will save you a lot of money.
I would also say, leave time for the last few rooms so you can really look at all the artwork and the models, as these are really interesting to read about and if you frame it right you can make it look like you saw Hogwarts in full scale!
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