I went to Hogwarts for my birthday!

For many, many years now, I have dreamt of visiting the WB Studio Tour. This year for my birthday, I finally went there!

Majority of the scenes in Harry Potter were filmed at a studio in Leavesden, which is located a little bit outside of London. After they wrapped up filming of the 8 Harry Potter movies, they converted the studio into a museum of sorts – you can experience many of the places that you see in the movies in real life here. You first enter into the Great Hall, and depending on the time of year, it’s decorated to match. Since my birthday is at the end of November, it was decorated for Christmas with a big feast, Christmas trees and lots of festive cheer.
Then you get to some of the smaller sets, like the Gryffindor and Slytherin common rooms, Dumbledores Office, Hagrids Hut, Weasley’s kitchen and the potions dungeon. The sets were of course moved around to fit with the exhibition, but they are all of the original sets from the actual movies with the props and some of the costumes placed on mannequins.
Other notable places to see in the exhibition is the Hogwarts Express on Platform 9 3/4, the herbology greenhouse, Privet Drive no. 4 (yes, there’s an actual brick building), Diagon Alley, Gringotts, the Dark Forest and the Ministry of Magic. Honestly, there’s so many cool things, I’m probably forgetting half.

It was truly a magical visit. Since I am a cosplayer and I love any chance to dress up, I had brought my school robes and wore them. There weren’t that many people in costumes, but there were a few others apart from us. From the moment we entered, I couldn’t stop smiling. A few times, I got so overwhelmed by how awesome it was that I almost cried with happiness – I was planning this trip for more than half a year, and I was afraid I had overhyped it for myself. But I definitely hadn’t!

We booked the tickets straight from the webpage – it’s also possible to book tours including busses, but then you have a set time to finish, and if you get there yourself, you can stay as long as you like (until they close at 22).
Our tour started at 11, and we arrived early enough to look around in the shop first. We had dinner at the studio before heading home, and it was past 20 before we were on the bus back to the train station. I feel like it was worth it to have the hassle of figuring out trains for ourselves, because I think I would’ve felt short for time if we had been on a bus tour there. The transport in London is so easy now. You don’t need Oyster cards anymore – if you have a card with chip or Apple/Googlepay on your phone, you just tap it when you enter the station and again when you leave – that’s it. No need to buy tickets, sign up for anything or any of that. I think we paid a total of 6,9 GBP for the train back and forth. Compared to what I’m used to in Denmark, that’s super cheap. Just hop on the train at Euston and get off at Watford. They even said on the train speakers where to go to get the free shuttle bus out to the studios, and they showed a little welcome video with Tom Felton on the bus-ride.

There were a few shops along the tour that sold unique items compared to what they had in the main store. All of the stores had so many different things. Some of them the same as what you can buy at the Harry Potter shop at Platform 9 3/4 (more on London HP shopping further down), and some of them unique to the studio. I’ll admit that by the end of our tour when we returned to the shop, I was kind of overwhelmed and had a hard time choosing what to buy. But I got a few things, including my favourite, which is a personalized, engraved metal Christmas ornament. I also got a badge (well, two, because reasons) with Happy Birthday for free, since it was my birthday!

Around half-way through the tour, there’s a cafe called “The Backlot Cafe”. They serve mostly fast-food like burgers, salads and sandwiches. I had loaded fries that were good, but the food there was not super special, but filling and fairly priced, considering it being a tour. They also served Butterbeer in “Souvenir cups” and I had one of those – it was great, and I like my little cup. There was also a Butterbeer cafe, but I wasn’t hungry enough for dessert, even though I would’ve liked to try the ice cream there.
After our tour, we went to the food hall. If you sign up early enough, you can get a “Great Hall Christmas feast” here – it’s not in the actual Great Hall set, but a sort of casual version of it within the restaurant. Looked nice, but I wasn’t aware of it before it was too late to book.
But it was ok, because the restaurant also had a sharing plate with a Christmas dinner of turkey, sausages, pork, potatoes, stuffing, gravy etc etc. It even came with crackers! It was delicious, and the portion size was good for two hungry, adult muggles! I’ve added a collection of photos from our trip at the bottom of this post.

But before I end this – The studios is by far the only place in London where you can find HP merch, and I just wanted to share my little map here. I’ve added some of the shops I saw. Most of them are not that unique, but I will say that MinaLima and Platform 9 3/4 shops are worth visiting! And just FIY – At least in November 2024, Primark (any of them) was NOT interesting for Harry potter fans. There were 3 items – a set of socks, a very synthetic cozy-hoodie thing (the type that makes you static just by looking at it) and a brick of wood with a sticker on it that passed as a Marauders Map ornament for 15GBP. Not that I hate Primark, but considering how many cool things I got from there a few years ago, it was a great disappointment on this trip.

My map also has a few sights – I’m not big on chasing random buildings just because they were in the movies, but the few I added are nice, even if you’re not hunting Harry Potter filming locations. 

I could probably write a novel about this trip, because it was amazing, but I will stop it here. Soon, I’ll add a post about the fabric disctrict on my cosplay blog, so if you’re into that, check it out.