Harry Potter Studios London Tour {Deetour}

Yesterday’s trip to a Harry Potter themed cafe here in Singapore reminded of last September 11’s trip to Harry Potter Studios in London.

My friend Zenie, though UK-based, had always wanted to go but couldn’t find a fellow Harry Potter nut to go with, so we were lucky we had each other. I probably couldn’t have found a better person to go with, since Zenie was my former flatmate whom I co-shared the Harry Potter series with. Let me explain.

In the months leading up to the release of book 7, we had decided we wanted to reread the series. Since both of us had none of the books, we decided to buy 3 books each and read them. Then on the morning of the release, we were up early before 6 am to collect our reserved books – this time we didn’t share, but bought one each. You can read all about that adventure here. OMG how can that have been almost 10 years ago already? 😱

We bought tickets that came with the bus ride from the Warner Bros Studio Tour website and cost us £33 apiece. We went to the meet-up site in the morning and got on a double decker bus which played the first Harry Potter movie for us to watch during the ride.

Now I had seen part of the Harry Potter studio sets before, when they brought them to Singapore, but that one didn’t allow taking pictures, and they didn’t have all the sets. This one had no such limitations and it was bloody fantastic. I have literally over a hundred photos because there was so much to see – the tour took about 3 hours, it was so huge! I did my best to pick the best photos and might upload more later. Here you go.

The Hogwarts Castle in the movies is not an actual castle but just a small set they built. See how it’s not quite lifelike in size yet looks very real anyway? Good job, props people!

The highlight of the whole trip – well actually, there were two. The first was the butterbeer and the butterbeer ice cream. They were both soooo delicious! They tasted like butterscotch and they were the perfect thing to quench our thirst on this weirdly sunny day in London. Yes, can you believe it? Normally London is as dark and dreary as though dementors are floating about, but for some reason, when I was there, the sun followed me, and one of the days I was there was actually the hottest day in London on record since 1911.

The other highlight was getting to fly on a broomstick. I’m serious, I have proof, see below.

Haha of course I know you know this isn’t real, duh. It cost a pretty penny, but I figured, when else would I get a chance to have a video of myself flying? It’s not like I’m ever gonna be a movie star or something.

All in all, this was definitely one of the highlights of my trip to London, and I am super glad I got to, because if you went back in time to talk to younger Zenie and me, they would have said that they never in their wildest dreams imagined that they would ever see the movie set in person.

Magic doesn’t just happen in the Harry Potter world. Sometimes, magic happens in real life, too.

 

Warner Bros. Studio Tour London
Studio Tour Drive
Leavesden
WD25 7LR