Entry is timed to prevent massive crowds, and it's brilliantly staffed and organised. Plan to spend at least three hours wandering through and poring over the detail. There is an outdoors area in the middle of the tour where you can eat a picnic and I would recommend bringing your own sandwiches - only the egg and cheese ones were left at the refreshment stand by about 1.30pm and they are very expensive. You can buy Butterbeer, which tasted like an odd mixture of yellow-tinted cream soda topped with marshmallow fluff to me.
The merchandise shop is well stocked and will part you from your money. Wands and scarves are £25 each, and there are replica wands of many of the characters. The staff member at the wand tester table can help you find the perfect wand for you through a series of questions. Mr London cheated terribly to make sure he ended up with Neville Longbottom's, and Miss London didn't want to take any risk that she might not get Luna Lovegood, so didn't go through the process and just grabbed the wand. I am much too mature for all that nonsense - so picked Bellatrix Lestrange's wand myself ;)
The chocolate is very expensive - an admittedly solid chocolate frog (150g) was £8. The house robes are £75 each (Miss London was tempted until she realised that'd be all of her saved up birthday money blown).
The website is at www.wbstudiotour.co.uk. If you live in or are visiting London/England and are a Harry Potter fan I'd thoroughly recommend it.
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The tour sounds amazing, I really need to book tickets as I've been eager to see it all in real life:) Thanks for the useful info!
ReplyDeleteHi Meeta - it's well worth a visit!
DeleteThank you so much for blogging about this! I was so excited to hear how you got on and the information is so useful (food, pricing, wands etc.). I'm very keen to go but I suspect that leaving it a year or so would be best for my brood to best appreciate it?
ReplyDeletePS. Which leggings do you have on?
Hi MB - well kids who are 4 and under get in free, so I'd try to time it so that at least one of them is :) I don't think a toddler would get a huge amount out of it, and might be a bit bored while the rest of you are looking at everything.
DeleteThe leggings are Black Milk - The Great Wave (birthday present). I love them.
I was telling Modesty Brown how I wish I was C for the day! This sounds like an amazing day out!!!
ReplyDeleteI reckon we could have snuck you in as an under 15 on a family ticket too ;)
DeleteThanks for a really helpful review - which age groups do you think it will suit (i.e. would a teen find it cheesy?)
ReplyDeleteHi - I think it'd be great for a teen, as long as the teen in question has some sort of interest in Harry Potter :) It's not cheesy at all - my 10 year old girl loved it, but there were many older teens there too. Be warned - over 15s count as adults, and there is no student discount.
DeleteIt's refreshingly schmaltz-free - just loads of really 'Oh goodness, I never noticed that!' detail from the films. There is quite a lot of detail on the designs - sets and characters, so it'd particularly appeal to a teen with an interest in design or technology.
I think any child who has read the books or seen some of the films would love it. I'd say a toddler would most likely be a little bored (it takes three hours, unless you rush through the sound sets and then you'd miss loads).
There were probably more adults than children - I think at least 30% of the people there didn't have young children (pre-teens) when we went, and that's during the summer holiday. It has opened relatively recently though, so I imagine lots of long term Harry Potter fans are working their way through :)
Cannot wait to go!
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