The Harry Potter Studio Tour - A Review

The following is a review of the Harry Potter Studio Tour. Please be warned it contains major spoilers and a lot of photographs, so if you don’t want to know about the contents of the tour you would be advised not to read any further.Tx

Since the release of the final Harry Potter film last year there hasn’t been much in the way of excitement or good cheer for the die-hard fans, especially the UK ones. But all that has changed with the opening of Warner Bros Harry Potter Studio Tour at Leavesden.

Although the series (both books and films) is now complete and everyone in the fandom is feeling the loss to some extent, the US is fairly well-served for Potter-related entertainment from the theme park in Florida (and soon to be in Los Angeles) as well as conferences taking place all over the country catering to every facet of the Potter fandom. Sadly, the UK didn’t get the theme park, nor do we have many of the conferences, although there is the excellent Wizard Rock show, The Snow Ball held in Edinburgh, in December most years and Alohamora, a conference to rival any of the US ones is being planned for 2013 in London.

And now we have the Harry Potter Studio Tour, which is probably the closest we’ll ever get to the theme park (although I’m still hoping it will one day open on our shores). The hype surrounding the contents of the tour was intense, the wait for the opening was long and the anticipation of the Potter fandom was high. It finally opened on Saturday 31 March and the initial reviews from the fan pages were all good.

And so it was with intense excitement that Mrs H3 and I (probably more me being excited, if I’m being honest) made our way to sunny Leavesden last Monday to sample the goodies the tour had to offer. And I’m pleased to be able to report that we had an absolutely brilliant time and enjoyed it even more than we anticipated. In fact, I think I enjoyed the experience more than my visit to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Florida last year (I really hate to say that), although the extremely hot weather there may have had something to do with that.

The Harry Potter Studio Tour is not a theme park. It doesn’t have rides and it doesn’t have a fake village of snowy Hogsmeade (which is strange to see in such hot weather) complete with an admittedly impressive Hogwarts castle overlooking it. What is does have, which I believe makes it win out over The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, is the original sets, props and costumes that were actually used during the course of the seven films.

This isn’t exactly a new idea. An exhibition has been, and will continue to travel the world for years, showing costumes and props within recreated settings and other smaller exhibitions have happened elsewhere (such as Harrod’s recreation of Diagon Alley for the release of the last film on DVD). But this is on a far more extravagant scale and the area the items are housed in (sound stages J & K co-incidentally) has real relevance to the films, as this was where many of the scenes using the sets being shown were shot.

Although I was excited at the idea of seeing Potter film memorabilia in such a close environment, I was a little worried that it would turn out to be like the Star Trek exhibition that Mrs H3 and I visited some years ago which had promised much and delivered very little. But from the moment we arrived it was clear this was going to be something very different.

The first thing to mention is that all the people who work there are incredibly friendly. Everyone we met from the car parking staff, security, the tour guides, the hospitality staff and even the shuttle bus drivers, were all incredibly nice, loved to talk about Harry Potter in great depth and were happy to take pictures of us with the exhibits. It really does make a difference to the atmosphere when the staff engage with the subject as deeply as the audience and have knowledgeable tidbits to share with anyone who cares to listen.

Secondly, entrance to the tour is in timed slots and the studio has very sensibly limited the amount of people who can enter the tour at any one time (and I hope they continue to do this in the future as I believe it is the key to its success). This means that although there are several people looking at the same exhibits as you, there aren’t huge queues, (even the queue for the broomstick and flying car green screen photographs wasn’t as bad as queuing to get into Ollivander’s Wand Shop in Florida (and didn’t involve standing in blazing sunshine for over an hour) or so many people milling around that you can’t see or photograph the exhibits properly, as was also the case in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

The entrance hall is light and airy containing giant photos all around the walls of the various characters and high above is the Weasley’s flying car. On one side of the hall is the coffee shop and toilets, on the other is the extensive gift shop containing everything you might need for attending Hogwarts, from clothing and stuffed pets (including replicas of several of the costumes from the movies) to the Marauder’s Map and sweets from Honeydukes. 

Whilst you are queuing to get into the first stage of the tour you are already treated to seeing the Cupboard under the Stairs, the place where Harry’s story began and there are also the handprints of the three leads. Once the tour itself begins you are ushered into a room containing images of film posters from all over the world and after a brief introduction by a guide, a short film explaining the popularity and importance of the series is shown. Once this is finished you move through to a cinema area where you take your place in one of the comfortable seats (smelling lovely and leathery and new at the moment). Another film is shown, starring Dan, Emma and Rupert, who give a quick overview of what you are about to see and then the first, of what was for me, one of several breathtaking moments to happen during the tour occurs. I won’t describe it here so that there are still some surprises if you visit, but suffice to say that it made my heart beat faster and made me very happy to be there.

A talk by a guide follows in the Great Hall, which is a spectacular construct, featuring flag stone floors, and amazing decorations. Two of the House tables are laid out and at various points throughout the room are costumes from the various films.

It is at this point the guided tour finishes and you are left to wander the remaining exhibits in your own time – and you really can take just as long as you like over this (the tour is advertised as taking three hours but we were there for four and could easily have been in there for longer), reminded by the tour guide that there are fifteen hidden snitches to find by the end of the tour.

As you make your way through each area, photographing everything (and you will), there are guides specific to each section who are happy to recount tales, or point out items of interest you might have overlooked (like Neville’s ear extenders or Belltrix’s teeth). By the time we’d reached Dumbledore’s study we had only found one snitch (although to be fair we didn’t have a copy of the snitch list that gives clues as to their whereabouts and I'm completely rubbish at spotting anything) and so I asked the guide there how many we should have found by that time. She told me it was five which meant we really weren’t doing very well, but after a couple of hints we’d found another two of them.

And then we were at the Potions classroom, which anyone who knows me will know was the area I was keenest to see, being a huge fan of Professor Snape. Hagrid’s hut, the kitchen at the Burrow, the Gryffindor dormitory and boy’s bedroom all follow until you find yourself at the Ministry of Magic, the statue showing Magic is Might in the centre with Dolores Umbridge’s office, the Ministry Floo’s and Malfoy Manor, with costumes from the Malfoy family and various baddies, around the outside.

At this point you leave the first sound stage and enter the Backlot outside which contains 4 Privet Drive, The Potter’s house at Godric’s Hollow, and Riddle Family Gravestone as well as the Knight Bus, Sirius Black’s motorbike and the Flying Car, all of which can be accessed for photos. This is also a refreshment area containing seating and a stall selling sandwiches, drinks, ice cream and the famous Butterbeer which has apparently been imported specially from Florida.

Outside the second part of the tour are several of the chess pieces from the first movie, which are rather magnificent and, as with a Death Eater earlier in the tour, you can’t help wishing that they moved occasionally, although that would have been truly terrifying!

So onto the second sound stage and it’s the Creature Shop and Makeup and Prosthetics, where you are greeted by some of those scary Inferi and a Grindylow. You can see the head casts of all the goblins plus all of the many fantastic creatures that were created for the series. Particularly impressive are Aragog (who Mrs H3 and I eulogised to in the manner of Professor Slughorn, having seen the Half Blood Prince only the day before) and Buckbeak, who is so life-like it’s scary. I personally also adored the Thestrals, although it was disappointing that they didn’t have their wings in the full-size version.

After you’ve looked at the ugly little mandrake and the even uglier Voldemort baby thing from the last film you make your way to another of those amazing faster heartbeat sights (at least you will if you’re a fan), Diagon Alley. Entering by Gringotts Bank you make your way up the road, able to inspect the shops that you know so well from the stories, enjoying seeing the cauldrons in Potages or checking out Gilderoy Lockhart’s books in Flourish & Blotts and of course marvelling at the window displays of Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes which dominates Diagon Alley. I was also pleased to see that Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour was there too, although it had never actually appeared in any of the films.

Once you finally manage to drag yourself away from this perfect slice of both the books and the movies it’s onto the Art Department which includes everything from sketches to some beautiful artwork and models both in paper version and more substantial building material.

It’s at that point you reach the most astonishing and powerful exhibit on the whole tour, one which truly took my and Mrs H3’s breath away. It’s the scale model of Hogwarts, but to describe it as that just doesn’t do it justice. For some reason I hadn’t expected it to be as large as it was and once you walk around it, and it takes quite some time to do, you discover more about the castle than you would ever learn by watching the films. It is exquisitely sculpted and so intricate in its detail I don’t think you can take it all in after just one look. The lighting is brilliant and takes you through twenty four hours with the castle lighting up as darkness falls, then coming back to life as day breaks. To be honest I could try to describe this amazing exhibit for hours and still not manage to capture how truly fantastic it is. I think the only time I’ve ever been as strongly moved by a piece as this was when I saw the real Statue of David in Florence and anyone who read my blog about that will know just how was I was affected by it.

When you can finally bring yourself to leave, and to be honest if I’d been there on my own I would probably have spent another hour in there just studying the intricacies of the building, you end up in the wand shop, where there is a mixture of the boxes from the film version of Ollivander’s, along with wands for every person who ever worked on the film series. There are also helpful staff who have memorised where the wands are so you can ask to see Alan Rickman’s wand and they will show you where it’s located.

And then, rather sadly, you’re back in the gift shop and buying Chocolate Frogs (all the chocolate is made in England so tastes better than the US counterparts apparently – I don’t know as I haven’t tasted either) and replica ‘Have You Seen This Wizard’ and ‘Undesirable No 1’ posters, before heading for a cup of tea (where they have a very tasty cake selection, which we were very good and didn’t try) or heading out of the Studios and off home, feeling happy at having been a part of the Wizarding World once more, but sad at having to leave it.

I feel there were one or two little niggles, which are things that annoyed us rather than necessarily being problems for the majority. Firstly, as hardcore fans excited to be taking part in something so majorly Potter we had bought everything - the guidebook and the digital tour guide, which you can buy as a package with your entrance ticket to save some money. We also paid for the special ticket wallet rather than collecting our tickets on the day, but to have to then give in those tickets to collect our guides etc. made the wallet rather redundant (and a waste of £3.95).

The digital guides too, were rather a waste, at least they were for us, as we wanted to share the experience rather than walk around in our own little worlds listening to Tom Felton. There is no doubt that the guides are good value for money, containing something like thirty two pieces of information given by Tom about the various parts of the tour plus extra exclusive information in videos, sketches, picture galleries etc. for each of these, but having decided we would finish going through the guide whilst we had our tea at the end of the tour (as I noticed several people doing before we went in) I wasn’t impressed to discover that by the time we finished the tour the battery was about to give out. We therefore had to give up with the guides about half way through. If I was going on the tour on my own I would probably get the guide again so I could learn about all the cool stuff it contains, but  I don’t think it’s really any good for groups.

The food and drink was about standard for these sorts of attractions. Starbucks are the retailer of choice and their prices are pretty much as you would expect, with a bottle of water selling for £1.50. The one thing they do allow, which certainly isn’t allowed at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, is for you to take your own food and drink, although understandably you’re not allowed to consume it during the tour except in the Backlot.

What annoyed us here was the Butterbeer. In Florida you can get two types of Butterbeer – the ‘normal’ one and a frozen one. In the UK they sell only the normal one (which is a shame ‘cos I loved the frozen one). However, in the US they serve it in plastic pint tankards and aren’t a bad price (I can’t remember exactly how much it was, but it wasn’t too expensive. Over here they sell it in small plastic glasses (the ones that come with water coolers) and they charge £2.95 a glass. This really is extortionate, especially when you discover, as we did that it actually tastes nothing like the Butterbeer from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. It may have been that the drinks we received weren't very well poured (or maybe that should be mixed) – certainly the delivery method is completely different from the US system, but it was probably the biggest disappointment of the day as we’d both been looking forward to sampling it again. It wasn’t that it didn’t taste nice, ‘cos it was fine, but it was a bit like a cross between ginger ale and cream soda with a bit of creamy stuff on top and didn’t make me feel like I was drinking Butterbeer, whereas in Florida it did. Thinking about it his might actually be a good thing as it saved us a lot of money by only having the one drink. I was also personally disappointed that the Pumpkin Juice hadn’t also been brought over, although several of the bottles were in one of the displays.

Finally, the prices in the shop are somewhat steep. Expect to pay £3.95 for a bar of Honeydukes chocolate and the Chocolate Frogs are more like £7. Scarves, hats and gloves in house colours, which are all going to be desired by the younger visitors, if not the older, will set you back about £60 for the set and I’ve no idea how much the wands were as I didn’t bother looking. Whilst the prices certainly weren’t cheap in the US, they are cheaper than over here. Oh, and if you a spare £200 odd, you can buy a replica of Hermione’s gown from the Yule Ball.

I honestly think that the ticket price, which I have heard criticised by some as being too expensive, definitely wasn’t for what is on offer during the tour and that it is interesting enough for those who are not Harry Potter fans, but are interested in looking behind the scenes at how films are made, to get something out of it too. But the concessions have the ability to make the experience very much more expensive, especially if you’re a family with children. Once we’d bought green screen photos (which reminds me of another little gripe, that they only had Gryffindor robes available for the broom flying photos - definitely not what a Slytherin wants - and whilst I understand the problem of green screen and green robes, not everyone considers themselves Gryffindor and there are two other Houses at Hogwarts too) and food and drink, Mrs H3 and I had spent about £50 between us on top of the price of entry – and we really didn’t overdo it, or buy anything from the shop. 

Oh, and we only found 9 of the golden snitches in the end, so we’re going to have to go back so we can look for them again!