Harry Potter Studios...Broomin' Magical!!

                                                                Harry Potter Studios,Warner Bros. Studio Tour London

In early April 2015, myself and my good friend Marianna travelled to Watford to visit the Harry Potter Studio.

It was an amazing experience, one that I would recommend to anyone whether you’re a fan or not, the sheer talent of the people who worked on the movies is amazing. I am a Harry Potter movie fan let’s say… not a hard core fan… I wouldn’t be winning any prizes at a table quiz unlike Marianna, a total buff!! 

So the details I suppose comes first, we flew into Luton Airport, we got the “A” bus £2.10, to a central bus centre and got the 321 bus (£5 each way), from there to Watford Bus Station. 

The bus had WIFI and plug sockets, so the hour and a half journey wasn’t as bad, - it was a normal single deck bus, not a coach.

In Watford we stayed in Jurys Inn, clean, quiet and a good price and location for us, we shared a twin room at 45euro each, no breakfast, we booked with booking.com.

There really isn’t too much in Watford, but there is a Nandos!! J and a huge shopping centre that we spent the following day in – Superdrug, Eddie Rockets, John Lewis, Boots, Wilko, and many more!

NOW ONTO THE STUDIO!!!

   At Watford bus station you are picked up by a double decker Harry Potter Bus... 

YES!! A BUS COVERED IN HARRY POTTERNESS!! 

It was £2 return and took about ten minutes to get to the studio! We paid E60 each for the studio, this included entry, the audio guide cassettes and a momento book to take home.

It is advised to arrive early, so we sat for a while and had a drink, they has a Starbucks, and collected our audio cassettes, while waiting to enter we met some employees of the studio, they were so knowledgeable about the films that I stood in awe and listened to them talking to school kids in front of us.

Where to draw the line of what I want to talk about as the fact that I expected nothing meant I enjoyed it even more, then if I had read everything before visiting, so I will say, it is self-guided and they say it’s about three hours to visit the two studios, in-between each there is a “back lot” of outside sets, and props.

And yes we took just under three hours to really enjoy everything.

We also had butter beer, it was delicious!! We both thoroughly enjoyed having it even though the picture suggests different!

  We were fortunate enough to arrive just after the new Hogwarts Express Train was added to the studio, we were able to experience being on platform 9 ¾ which was fantastic.

Throughout the studio we were able to see the layouts of many sets, see the costumes that were worn, props that were used as well as seeing in detail how the technical aspects of the movies were implemented to give the “real” affect! Just wondrous!!

In the middle of the first studio, there is a magical corner filled with green screens and here you can make little videos of yourself on a broom, or in the car Ron came to rescue Harry in, so funny to watch others doing it until you realise you have to “put on a show” yourself! 

I bought two pictures of myself! It was actually good value for the two of us to buy four as we basically got buy one get one free! J I’m not brave enough to put those pictures up!

The shop at the end was just amazing, the variety of gifts and memorabilia was epic, but so were the prices especially with the exchange rate for us. Your talking 13-14 euro for the solid chocolate frog or the jelly beans of every flavour,  I couldn’t bring myself to spend that. 

But we spent ages browsing everything from cloaks, hats, wands and actual full scale brooms! Magical!!

Overall I wouldn’t even second guess myself recommending the studios to anyone who had any interest at all in Harry Potter, I felt it wasn’t an expensive trip, everything was convenient in term of transport and staying in Watford. If staying in London there is a bus that travels from London Victoria.

A note about the choices for tickets, one does not need the audio guide, I used it for 3 exhibitions, it only offers extra information, there is plenty going on around you, and I was totally distracted and not bothered after a very short while to stop and listen. As for the momento book, to be honest, I haven’t really looked at it after I came home. I would say get the cheapest ticket and save your money for the green screen pictures and buy yourself a wand!

 ALSO- if you have a selfie stick bring that for some good pictures, as many of the exhibits are huge and arms reach isn't long enough! 

A lil collage of our trip ..