The highlight of our London trip was the Warner Brothers Studio Tour of the Harry Potter film studios. Since it was my friend’s birthday and both she and I are huge Harry Potter fans, we decided to go there and had one of the best days ever!
After we watched a short filmclip as an introduction, the screen on which it was shown was lifted up and behind it were the doors to the great hall of Hogwarts. That was incredibly cool. Since it was my friend’s birthday, she was then allowed to open the doors and we entered the great hall. The tourguide talked about it a bit and then asked us about our favourite houses. First up was Hufflepuff (I am totally a Hufflepuff) and as soon as she said it I began cheering, but to my confusion and frustration I was the only person in the entire room showing any reaction. At first I thought What? There are no more Hufflepuffs here? But as soon as the tourguide asked about the other houses it became clear, that the people were simply boring or didn’t care or maybe were not quite into Harry Potter (for whatever reason), because also for the other houses there was not much clapping, even for Gryffindor there were only like three people or so.
Anyway, the tour guide left shortly afterwards and we had time to explore everything. Both of my friends and I loved it, even the one who is not quite so much into Harry Potter. The other friend and I freaked out every couple of minutes because we saw something cool. It is really hard to describe the feling but it was really great to see all the sets and props (which are actually the original ones from the movies). There were puppets wearing costumes, some of them arranged in sets, there were the Hogwarts gate and the kitchen of the Burrow, Hagrids Hut and pieces of the ministry of magic, the dining table from Malfoy Manor, the potions classroom, Borgin and Burke’s, Dumbledores office, the Gryffindoor common room, Harry’s dormitory and so many other things. We saw the Philosopher’s stone, the golden egg, the triwizard cup (which was bigger than I had expected), two versions of the goblet of fire, the deluminator, all of the horcruxes, all of the Quidditch balls, Neville’s remembrall and so many other things.
After that came the bigger sets. Platform 9 3/4 with the Hogwarts Express was probably the most impressive. You could even go inside it and have a look at different cabins which were prepared as in different movies. For example the Prisoner of Azkaban one had windows styled frozen and the mark of a hand on it as well as the bottle in front of the window, in the Goblet of Fire one there was a Daily Prophet with an article about the Quidditch World Cup and in the Halfblood Prince one there were Quibblers, Harry’s potions book, a Pygmypuff and on the window was the loveheart from Lavender. After that we drank some butterbeer and then saw the Knight Bus, Hagrid’s/Sirius’s Motorbike, the flying car and some of the giant chess pieces as well as Privet Drive and the Hogwarts Bridge (which Seamus and Neville let explode in the last movie).
Up next were a lot of creatures. We saw Goblin masks and wax figures of a lot of characters, Dobby, a mandrake that could actually move, as could a Monsterbook of Monsters and a very real looking Buckbeak. We also saw Aragog, the head of a Basilisk and the one of it’s skeleton, a model of a Hungarian Horntale and so much more before we went into Diagon Alley through which we could actually go and the light was set in a way that it would become day and night. All the shops looked really cool and in the window of Flourish and Blotts there were all the Lockhart books and an advertisement for Magical Me which are just details that I loved. Finally we saw a lot of smaller models for different sets and drawings of different scenes before in the last room we got to see the huge Hogwarts model. It was so wonderful and I could have looked at it for hours. In this room (just as in Diagon Alley) it became day and night and at night there would be lots of tiny lamps and it was super cool.
Finally we had to leave though, but in the shop I bought a necklace with the deathly hallows sign. I wanted a Hufflepuff scarf as well, but sadly they were out of stock. 😦 Maybe I will get one one day. One of my friends bought earrings with the sign of the ministry of magic on them and the other bought a Holyhead Harpies t-shirt and a big blanket with the Hogwrts sigil on it.
Oh and I almost forget to tell you about the passports we got. Usually they are for children, but we were allowed one each as well. You could collect stamps in them and answer questions nd stuff. They were really cool, but we just collected the stamps because we wanted to spend the time we had there looking at the sets and props and not answering questions, but I think for children it is a really cool thing.
Miss Squishy and me
Planetracks in the Sky 