My trip to Hogwarts!

My mother treated me to an end of exams celebratory trip to Harry Potter Studios Tour in London. The trip was a great deal with National Holidays, which included the travel (although it was a horrific coach), the hotel, two meals and a trip to the Harry Potter Studio Tour and a few hours in London.

  

On the Saturday we left Preston at 7.15am and arrived in Watford at 12. The tour was amazing, and it was great to see so many different kinds of people enjoying the Harry Potter Tour, there were people from all over the world and from all age ranges. First off there was a short film then we entered through Hogwarts giant doors into the Great Hall. I wont go into too much detail about the tour as it will ruin the surprise for anyone who is going to go! But I will say that it has film props and sets from all of the 8 films ranging from clothing, wigs, the creatures, to Diagon alley!

One of my favourite parts of the tour were the area with the board with all the pictures of the “animal actors”, the board contained all the details of the animals they used within each of the films. Made me laugh that they said all the dogs were well trained and were great to have on the set, whereas the cats did what they want.

There was also a part of the tour that allowed people to use the Green screens that allow the actors to appear like they are flying on brooms, or in the Weasley’s car. I did not have my photo taken on the broomstick as the queue was simply too long, but my mother and I had our photo taken within the Weasleys car.

Another amazing part of the tour was the areas with all the details of how they created all the different creatures within the films, with all the different sketches and models for the creatures such as Aragog, Lupin as the Werewolf and all the banks Goblins. The make up was absolutely amazing! But I’ve got to admit that the goblins were actually really creepy and reminded me of something out of a horror film!

The whole tour took my mother and I about 4 hours to walk round, and that was with us rushing the end of tour worrying that we wouldn’t be back in time for the coach. The shop was slightly disappointing however, the shop could have done to be bigger and have more stock, I was disappointed to find that they didn’t have any Dobby soft toys! We only bought a fridge magnet with Fang on it (had to get something with Fang on), a key ring and a lolly for Mark. 

The hotel we stayed in was a 2 minute walk from Watford town centre, the trip included a buffet of various meals for tea, and also a buffet for the breakfast. The hotel was really nice and I would definitely recommend it. On the Sunday we got to London at 9.45am, which was slightly annoying as the shops only really opened at 12pm, and we needed to be back for the coach at 2pm. We were only really interested in going round the shops because I only went to London in December with my boyfriend and went round all the museums and galleries then. However, I did find the time for my one of my favourite shops; Forever 21. Actually only spent about £65, which is good for me! I will do a fashion post another day with all the goodies that my mother treated me to.

A downside to the trip was that there was a rally/protest march on around Hyde Park in the afternoon which meant that the coach only arrived at 3.45pm, when it was meant to pick us up at 2pm! So that was fun, this meant that we only arrived back in Preston just before 9pm. Thus reinstating my hatred for coaches! 

But to any Harry Potter fans out there, the tour in Watford really is a must! Walking round really made me want to watch all the films back to back again. Was so much fun working out where all the sets and the tiniest of props were from. Now I just need to go to Florida! 

I took over a hundred photos so here is just a few of my favourite ones from the weekend. Also, my phone died half way round the tour so I had to steal my mums phone to take some photos, which i have yet to steal to put up sadly.