Harry Potter Tour

Even though we feel so lucky to have the chance to live here in England, moving is still hard. The kids especially miss their friends and all things familiar about home. So one of the first weeks we moved here, I think on a Monday or Tuesday, I decided that on Thursday or Friday of that week we should go see the Harry Potter Studio Tour, knowing that this was a highly looked-forward to activity. After getting the kids all psyched up, we went to the web site and found out that these tours need to be booked weeks, if not months, in advance. Be warned! Plan ahead for your trip to the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studio Tour. So last Friday our scheduled tour date finally arrived. It was worth the wait! A definite must for any Harry Potter fan, or possibly even someone just interested in movie-making in general. 

Given that the whole tour is packed full of sets, props and costumes all made for filming, it is picture-taking heaven throughout the tour. We took well over a hundred pictures during our time there. It's been so hard deciding what to post! I've used very little restraint, so non-Harry Potter fans, feel free to skip the rest of this post.

The tours are arranged so that you have a set time to arrive. I'm guessing then that there are about the same levels of crowds no matter when you go. These shots from outside and the lobby show they have plenty to occupy your eye while waiting for your scheduled time.

The tour starts out in the Great Hall set. It's not old movie sets of paperboard and plaster, or whatever it was they used to use. It's real stone, real wood, all the details beautifully done.

 Camille in front of the potions room. Over 400 intricately designed potions bottles line the shelves.

More of the beautiful props that we couldn't resist taking endless pictures of.

Here are just a few of the costumes shown on the tour. 

I couldn't quite figure out how to photograph this properly, but here is Anya in the Mirror Erised.

One of the highlights of the tour for Anya and me was going for a car ride and broomstick ride on a green screen. So fun! You watch a video of yourself flying around Hogwarts, quidditch fields and London. 

I hadn't quite realized how much was created in the studios. I imagined these houses as real locations, not a studio set. Camille enjoyed her butterbeer. She let me have a taste and I'll have to say it is worth looking up one of the recipes I've seen for it online.

 Anya would have really liked to have tried out the flying version.

Diagon Alley was so fun to see. Once again, the level of detail is amazing. Each shop is staged to allow close-up filming. I'm sure many of the intricately designed shops are only briefly passed over in the films. 

I've forgotten how many hand-written labeled wand boxes were created for Ollivanders. A lot.

I loved seeing the artwork, blueprints and models for the sets and designs. It really made me appreciate the planning and work that goes into making movies like these.

The tour ended with the model they used for Hogwarts in the films. They would put the model on a green screen and then add background later. They showed a clip of Daniel Radcliffe walking on a green treadmill in front of a green screen, and then how it looked with that shot put together with the castle in the film. In the scene in the movie he's walking through the snow in front of the castle.

It's early in our year to say, but I do think we'll remember this tour as one of our highlights. Any Harry Potter fan who comes to England would love it.