London Day 3: Harry Potter

 Tuesday morning, we ate a big English breakfast at the hotel. The crumpets were delicious. We then headed out to Harry Potter Studios. It was something we were all really looking forward to. We collected stamps, found golden snitches and found letters from the Dark Arts. We spent over 7 hours at the Studios! U's step count for the day was around 9500.

At Watford Junction, we caught the studio bus. Notice that it is powered by Muggle electricity.

A regular bus for comparison. It is electric.

Megan, Matthew and Me outside the Studios with large-scale replicas of the wands.

Megan, Matthew and U. We were there during the Dark Arts time.

Megan and Me with a dragon.

Side shot of the dragon to show the detail that was put into it.

Harry's room under the stairs.

U, Me and Megan entering the Great Hall.

Matthew in the Great Hall. There were floating pumpkins instead of floating candles.

A selection of the delectable food.

Some of Nearly Headless Nick's costumes.

The front of the hall with Professor McGonagall, Dumbledore and Snape. Notice the hourglasses for the House competition on the right. Looks like Gryffindor is in the lead.

Floating candles

The leaky cauldron at the Leaky Cauldron restaurant

Wands from Harry Potter

Gryffindor common room. It looks homey, which was the intent.

A few of the costumes from the movies. We learned about costume creation including how they would have multiple copies of the same outfit so they could age it for the progression of a scene with appropriate tears, holes, etc.

Matthew looking into the Mirror of Erised.

The Death Eaters came out every 30 minutes so try to cast their spells on us. This was part of the Dark Arts season at the Studios.

Dumbledore's office

Close up shot of the Sorting Hat. We had taken a quiz before and found the Me was in Gryffindor, U and Matthew in Hufflepuff and Megan in Ravenclaw.

Potions class with Snape. Some of the cauldrons were self stirring.

Some of the armor

More Death Eaters

This one almost got U!

The Knight Bus. For the scenes they shot in London, they had to remove the top of the bus every time they went under a bridge.

We learned about green screen and forced perspective shooting. Hagrid would use the little bike while Harry would use the big side car. They had two Hagrid's Huts for the same reason: one for Hagrid to appear large and the other for everyone else to appear small.

U with the door to the Chamber of Secrets. The snakes on the door were mechanical and actually moved!

The Burrow where the Weasleys lived. There was automatic dishwashing, vegetable chopping, knitting and ironing. The clock that shows where everybody is was neat.

Me and Matthew with forced perspective.

Megan and U with forced perspective.

Me with Professor Trelawney in the Divination Class

The Black family tree tapestry

We were attacked by some Dementors in the Forbidden Forest.

U with Buckbeak the hippogriff

A couple pictures of the large spiders in the Forbidden Forest. The top one that is under the tree is Aragog. Rupert Grint, who plays Ron Weasley in the films, is actually very scared of spiders so his reaction in the films is genuine.

More Death Eaters!

Me is terrified!!!!

We all made it to Platform 9 3/4.

Megan, Me and Matthew with the Hogwarts Express.

Inside the train.

Me, Matthew and Megan

Ron + Luna. The kids really wanted this picture.

We stopped at the Backlot Café where we ate lunch and enjoyed some Butterbeer ice cream. It was delicious!

Harry's acceptance letters to Hogwarts.

Harry with Dobby and Hedwig.

Megan, Matthew and Me with the Knight Bus.

Matthew, U and Megan with the Knight Bus.

Matthew, Me and Megan on Hogwarts Bridge.

U and Me

Matthew pulling up a potted Mandrake in Professor Sprout's Greenhouse. 

Megan

Me pulling up a Mandrake. They actually scream as you pull them up. It's a bit disconcerting.

U and Megan on Hagrid's motorbike

Me and Matthew on the motorbike

Matthew, U and Me in the Weasley's car

We learned how they made the goblin masks for the movies. It is quite involved and consists of four different pieces. We saw them put the pieces on an actor. I think I would have been claustrophobic in a mask!

Matthew and Me in Gringotts.

Outfits for sneaking into the Lestrange Vault for Harry (invisibility cloak), Hermione and Ron.

Hermione and Ron searching for the Hufflepuff Cup.

Matthew trying to reach the cup.

Me

U

Me and Megan in Diagon Alley.

Candy shop

They have an amazing model of Hogwarts. Here are some photos of it from different angles and in different lightings. It even rains at times!

Megan, Matthew and Me with Hogwarts

U with Hogwarts

Megan, U and Matthew

Megan, Matthew and U with a giant knight piece

Cool station sign at Watford Junction.

U and Megan on the train ride home

Me and Matthew