London: Part II (The Making of Harry Potter tour)

Our second day in London was a very special day, indeed. A dream 12 years in the making came true: I got to visit Warner Brothers Studio where the Harry Potter films were made! To be honest, this was the main reason I wanted to visit London. Let me tell you about our magical day!

Me and Melissa

I had booked our tour months in advance so we already had our tickets but when I booked them I had to pick a time for our tour. I chose 10:30am since I knew it was going to take a while to get there since the studio is in Watford. Google Maps had estimated it would take an hour and a half by bus so I thought we should leave 2 hours early just to be safe. However, the night before Melissa did a search and it said if we went by train and transferred a few times that it would only take 40 minutes. I figured 40 minutes sounded a lot better than an hour and a half so we decided to go by train. We wound up leaving around 9:15am thinking we'd have plenty of time. FALSE. The train ride wound up taking just as long as the bus! Our tickets said that any late arrivals could not be guaranteed entry so every minute that ticked by caused a bit of internal anxiety. However, I wasn't tooooo worried. I just had a feeling that everything would work out and that we'd get in even if we were late. A shuttle took us to the studio itself and that was my first time in a double decker bus. It was so high up that tree branches kept smacking into the windows and freaking everybody out. We finally arrived at the studio at 11:20am and I was prepared to cry and tell the lady it was my birthday if she told us we were too late for our scheduled tour but she just stamped it and sent us on our way. (insert sigh of relief)

Dumbledore's owl podium is my fave!

 When we walked in there was a queue we had to wait in with the other people in our group (there were about 50 of us) and right next to the line was the cupboard under the stairs--like, the ACTUAL CUPBOARD UNDER THE STAIRS! If I could've sobbed without looking like a freak I would have. Before the studio tour began we watched a short film to get us hyped up. Daniel, Emma and Rupert got us all stoked and shared some memories they had made going to this studio for the majority of their childhoods (I just love those three so much). When the film was over the screen lifted and behind it were the doors to the Great Hall! The Great Hall was totally wicked and I still can't believe I got to stand in it! Watching the movies will never be the same because now I'll be like, "I've been there and there and THERE!" Inside the Great Hall they had the student uniforms from all the 4 houses as well as the staff's costumes.

Luna's shoes and jewelry

The next room had the majority of props from the films in it. Luna's costumes and jewelry were my faves :) In this portion of the studio they had the boy's dormitory, the Gryffindor common room, Dumbledore's office, the Weasley's kitchen, the Potions classroom, Hagrid's Hut, and Umbridge's office. As far as props go, I think I was most excited to see all of the Horcruxes (the locket was so beautiful up close), the Philosopher's Stone, and the Tri-Wizard Cup. There was just so much to look at that it was a bit overwhelming. Honestly, I could've spent the entire day looking at everything. One really cute thing that I absolutely loved was this wall with photos of all of the animal cast from the films. There was a picture of each critter with its real name and a description of that animal's personality (for example, one of the Crookshank's was really bratty and kept biting everyone so she had to be used in shots that only involved running). I think they had used about 8 different Fangs so I'll have to look for that next time I watch all of the movies to see if I notice if they look different at all.

Potions Class

Another thing that was in this room was a place to have your picture taken on a broom. Really, only children were partaking in this part of the tour but as you know, I'm just a big kid so I jumped right in line with all the little ones. Let me tell you, this was probably the best part of the tour! You got to wear a robe and sit on a broom! There was green screen behind you and you got to watch yourself on a tv screen in front of you while the guy told you funny stuff to do like put your hand in the water then shake the water off. It was totally silly and cute and I loved it! The photo I bought was me in front of Hogwarts with the Dark Mark in the background. It's wicked smaaat.

Next we went outside and there was the Knight Bus, Number 4 Privet Drive, the Potter's house, the Ford Anglia, Sirius's motorbike, the Riddle family tombstone, the chess pieces from the first film and the large wooden bridge that connects the castle to the grounds. I was TOTALLY IN MY ELEMENT! It was just completely unreal and I'll never forget the excitement I felt getting to stand outside Number 4. They had a refreshments cart outside as well and I'm totally regretting not buying a Butterbeer. Melissa got one and I had a sip but I should've bought one for myself :/ Also outside we got to see some of the birds that had been in the films. There was a bird trainer there and we got to see one of snowy owls that played Hedwig demonstrate how the mail scenes were filmed. They train the birds to fly from point A to point B with a piece of cardboard in their beaks. Surprisingly, the ravens were a lot easier to train; to perform the same trick it only would take the ravens 2-3 days and the owls would take 2-3 weeks. Ravens are more intelligent than people give them credit for but that's a topic for another day, haha!

The Knight Bus

The last part of the tour was all about technical stuff, concept art, robotics, and prosthetics. We got to see pretty much every room that was created for the films as a miniature made out of paper. It was pretty neat to think about the process of making such monumental films like these and all of the pre-production that's involved. Diagon Alley was in this portion of the tour as well and it was awesome but I wish we had been able to go inside some of the shops (like Ollivanders). There were more owls in front of Eyelops Owl Emporium and we got to see an owl that played Errol. The final room had a bajillion wand boxes in it and on each box was the name of a person who had been involved in the making of the films. There was a dude in there who knew where every single person's name was in the room. (weirdo)

I think we wound up leaving around 4pm but I honestly could've hung out there forever (and ever). There were so many fun facts to read and amazing things to look at. It was paradise for any Potter nerd.

Number 4, Privet Drive

Once we got back to London we took at mini-break and had Thai food from a cart a few blocks from our hostel. We brought it back and ate in the lounge  and everybody kept giving us dirty looks for stinking up the room (they were just jealous). There was a group of American boys sitting across from us and Melissa got a taste of what I have to deal with back at home. Everything they were talking about was "totally sick, bro!". After we'd rested a bit we jumped back on the Underground and headed to Kings Cross Station since I was dying to see that in person as well. We made a beeline for Platform 9 3/4 and got our picture taken together. That was SO FUN! There was a dude there whose sole job was to twirl the scarves before the girl took the photo. Our picture came out pure cute and I can't wait to get it framed.

The last thing we did that day was go to Buckingham Palace to see the Queen's crib. It was dusk by then and the palace looked really dreamy. When we got back to our room we were 100% dead from our day and our flight to Amsterdam was early as heck so we turned in pretty early. Amsterdam turned out to be my favorite city we visited so stay tuned for my next post and I'll tell you the story of the BEST DAY OF MY LIFE (thus far).

LATERS!