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The Harry Potter Studio Tour- 05/07/13


Mitchada04

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Whilst this isn't a theme park it is definitely a great tourist attraction and definitely deserves a trip report.

The tour is well known globally with people travelling from all over the world to visit. We saw: English, German, Hungarian, Argentinian, South African, Turkish, Japanese and many more people of different origins. So it is certainly a well known tourist attraction!

So where do we begin? Well firstly, this may contain spoilers for those of you who haven't been and may like too. You have been warned. Secondly, this is very picture heavy.

You arrive at the studios and unsurprisingly they look like film studios. This is because they are, or were.

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This lovely sign greets you before you join a lovely cattle pen queue to enter the VT room. Us Brits really love queuing!

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The queue has a bit of theming though with Harry's under stair cupboard.

You watch a lovely video about the success of the Harry Potter franchise. Then you move into a seated area and sit before the entrance to Hogwarts! The seating was a bit strange as almost as soon as you were seated you had to move to the doors.

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These guards take no prisoners when it comes to protecting Hogwarts!

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Then all of a sudden you enter into the Great Hall.

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All the teachers are here to keep us safe.

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But watch out for the fiery gargoyles!

After a staff member talking to you about the Great Hall you are free to wander the rest of the tour at your own pace. Within this part are many of the props and rooms from the films. This is also where you see how the special effects are done with the use of green screen.

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This table looked nice.

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Watch your heads, these may fall on you.

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Tic toc.

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Snape, the good baddy.

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The Goblet of Fire with a lack of fire.

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An awful panoramic of Dumbledore's office.

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I like this door.

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Gringotts vehicle.

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Tim Burke tells us the magic behind the flying broom, and they really use magic!

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Decapitated Hagrid, his dog and their home.

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Professor Umbridge has an unhealthy cat obsession.

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The Death Eaters disapprove of this.

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So create a very strange statue.

From here you go outside to see some of the larger props, very nice of a nice day but I doubt it's much fun in the rain.

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This is a purple bus with three floors, your eyes aren't deceiving you.

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The houses on Pivet Drive look very nice.

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Some work could be done here though.

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The bridge.

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Certainly a memorable grave.

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Wizard chess anyone?

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These guys are ready!

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And battle commences.

You return inside to the more technical side of Potter with all the costumes, animations, models and drawings.

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Who doesn't love Dobby?

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The secret behind Hagrid.

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Such an innocent looking dog.

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Lovely Buckbeak, he means no harm.

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Why are people afraid of spiders? This one isn't scary at all.

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And Dementors, they're not exactly big, more a nuisance.

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Wizard humour...

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I just don't get it!

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Wizard ice creams on the other hand.

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Quite a nice street.

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Paper Hogsmeade.

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And the tree.

From here there is only two things left, the wand shop Ollivanders which was quite good, and the most spectacular bit of the whole tour.

THE MODEL OF HOGWARTS! Pictures just don't do this justice, it is amazing to think that this was built in only 40 days and used for any of the overview shots of Hogwarts.

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Then the lights went and it looked even better!

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The whole tour is amazing and whilst it is expensive it is definitely worth visiting once. It is a great hit with people worldwide and with good reason. I'm not a massive Potter fan but still found this tour and look behind the magic great fun and very interesting. I recommend it to everyone!

Thanks for reading :)

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Does look really well done. Not that I've ever managed to get the whole way through any of the Potter films so it is mostly lost on me.

How big is the site it is on, do you think there could be any opportunity to develop to into a complete studio type theme park? If they built a forbidden journey clone I'd go even if I don't get Potter!

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It's a pretty large site but I think some of the studios are still in use for films. I have heard that they are looking into to making it a more general Warner Bros. tour but I doubt this will happen until the popularity of the Harry Potter one falls and at this rate that won't be for a while! I'd love to see something like Forbidden Journey built and with the prices they charge I'd expect them to be able to afford something along those lines.

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Nice TR! Did they not show the "Making of"/ special effects film in the cinema room when you visited?

And you are so right about the outdoor section, the day we visited last month the heavens decided to open whilst we were in that section. This was obviously slightly irritating for a number of reasons including the fact that the bridge was not open to walk across as it would be far too slippery in heavy rain.

How long did you spend at the attraction? And what did you think of the huge store at the end of the tour?

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The video we saw was all about how they were given the book as an option to make it into a film but was put to the bottom of the shelf until someone read it. We didn't see anything about the special effects until the green screen section with the Gringotts bank vehicle.

We spent just over 2 hours in the tour itself but could have easily spent longer.

The shop at the end was amazing, the amount of merchandise they had was mind blowing. I especially liked how even the clothing range was between the 4 houses, it wasn't just all Gryfindor and Slytherin. Not being a massive Potter fan I didn't purchase anything (I'm sure I will in Florida though) but you could quite easily spend a fortune in there!

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