Wizarding Vacation: Tips for Visiting Warner Bros. Studios

Summer is here and it's scorching hot – a scene straight out of the beginning of The Order of the Phoenix. How about heading to better latitudes and longitudes? If you love Harry Potter as much as we do, we have a tip for a magical trip: Warner Bros. Studio Tour London – The Making of Harry Potter in Leavesden, just outside London.

Planning Your Trip

If you want to visit the studios, plan your trip well in advance – tickets often sell out months ahead. You have two options for getting there.

1. Guided tour with a travel agency: They handle everything for you – tickets, transport, and accommodation.
2. Independent travel: If you're up for an adventure, book your tickets here, find accommodation on booking.com, and grab a flight with Ryanair.

Visiting the Studios

I visited the Harry Potter studios last year with a friend, and it was one hell of a ride. The main goal? The studios. Tip: stay near London Euston station, where you can catch a train to Watford Junction, followed by a shuttle bus directly to the studios.

How does it actually work? You have your ticket, you're in England, and you know how to get to the studios? Great, most of the practical stuff is behind you, so let's head into the world of film magic! Before entering, they'll check your bags (there's also a cloakroom where you can store extra layers). I was really pleased by a kind gentleman right at the entrance who complimented our house pins and gave me a birthday badge (even though it wasn't my birthday).

The Great Hall and Other Exhibits

Before you're let inside, you can admire the massive dragon replica hanging in the atrium. Then, the staff will usher you into the Great Hall. Two house tables await visitors here, filled with props that look like they were plucked straight from the film – you'll actually be surprised that Hogwarts students aren't feasting right in front of you. Unfortunately, you don't have unlimited time to explore every detail here; the staff will soon usher you along.

The good news is that after that, you're on your own and no one is rushing you, so it's up to you how much time you want to spend there. We set aside a whole day for it, so we didn't rush anywhere. From my own experience, I advise you to go with a fully charged phone, and if you know your battery doesn't last, bring a power bank – you'll want to take photos in the studios. Everything and a lot of it (if you're like me and take photos like a classic tourist).

It's worth knowing right from the start that you can grab small paper Harry Potter passports to collect stamps and answer themed questions during the tour – yes, it's aimed at keeping kids entertained, but if you're as playful as we are, having grown up with Harry Potter twenty years ago, you'll enjoy it regardless of your birth year, even if you were born in the last millennium.

Dark Arts and the Forbidden Forest

After being ushered out of the Great Hall, we found ourselves in the massive studio spaces, where visitors are first greeted with info about the directors of the individual films and costume design. Then, we explored the beauty of the Gryffindor and Slytherin common rooms, peeked into Dumbledore's Office, The Burrow, and the Potions classroom. At Hagrid's Hut, we learned about the animal actors (like how many owls played Hedwig), and the next section was dedicated to Quidditch, brooms, and the tricks associated with them (but not just that, we also discovered the secrets of the Whomping Willow), plus they have a trick ready so you can summon a broom from the ground yourself.

The next stop is the Dark Arts corner, where you'll encounter the life-sized gate to the Chamber of Secrets and a display from Borgin and Burkes on Knockturn Alley. A Dementor would love to snack on you there, and even He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named himself sits with Nagini at the Malfoy manor.

Passing through the Ministry of Magic, where we were pleasantly surprised by staff members explaining how Wingardium Leviosa is actually done or how Robbie Coltrane became a giant thanks to masks and tricks, we reached the Forbidden Forest. If you don't like spiders, walk through quickly – the atmosphere is properly creepy, and as the large Acromantulas started descending, I was truly terrified. Still, it's a beautiful part of the studios where you weave between the roots of giant trees, meet Buckbeak bowing to you, see how the Patronus Charm is created around the corner, and hear a werewolf howling in the distance. It gives you chills, and despite the spiders, it's worth lingering here.

After a minor heart attack from the spiders (they really are huge), the next part of the tour is fortunately at Platform 9 ¾, so you can calm down with a walk through the station. You have the chance to walk through the train corridor and peek into the compartments where students traveled to Hogwarts. Of course, a photo with the beautiful red Hogwarts Express locomotive is a mandatory stop for every fan.

Outdoor Exhibits and Conclusion

At this point, we were halfway through our tour – after leaving the station, there's a large refreshment area around the corner where you can queue up if you're hungry or thirsty. It's a real shame that they only offer classic fast food. That is, food that young wizards and witches don't actually eat in the books. We know scenes of great feasts in the Great Hall from the films, and the books contain very vivid descriptions of the delicacies served to students. It's a missed opportunity not to be inspired by that and offer fans something other than Butterbeer, which is so sweet that many might not even like it (I didn't have a problem with it, but that's due to my high tolerance for sugar).

After a dose of liquid sugar, we moved to the outdoor section, where we visited the Dursleys' house on Privet Drive, admired the scale model of The Burrow, the Hogwarts fountain, and the Knight Bus from the outside. The chance to sit behind the wheel of the Ford Anglia or in Hagrid's/Sirius's motorcycle is also a nice cherry on top of the tour. One of the few other places where you'll queue up in the studios is the local greenhouses, because everyone wants to pull a mandrake out of the soil, and it takes a while before everyone gets a photo with it.

From the outdoor areas, we moved back inside, where the next part of the exhibition begins, focusing on visual effects and how they were created, including various masks, etc. Perhaps a less interesting topic for some, but for someone like me who didn't know such magic, it was a place full of new information that I enjoyed studying. You'll learn how to create a werewolf, goblins, merpeople, spiders, dragons, or Dementors.

From here, another breathtaking location awaited us – Gringotts Bank in all its glory – a large crystal chandelier, marble, and goblins behind the counters. The route leads visitors through the Lestrange vault, where you naturally have to take a photo with Godric Gryffindor's sword. But there's also a partially destroyed part of the bank where a dragon might be lurking – I think this was the most suggestive part of our visit and, for me, clearly the experience where the world of Harry Potter felt most alive – there's a screen stretched among the ruins where they project the fire-breathing beast, and I've never seen a more lifelike dragon.

Subsequently, we found ourselves on Diagon Alley, full of shops with wizarding supplies, and I actually appreciated that other fans were walking around us, many of whom were wearing wizard robes. The wizarding world felt alive. The only thing we regretted was that you can't go inside any of the shops, so we just walked around and admired their windows.

But we were already at the end – the scale model of Hogwarts Castle loomed before us, and with it, we said goodbye to the magical studios that we owe for 8 films full of adventures of the bespectacled boy with the scar on his forehead. Before leaving the premises, we couldn't miss the souvenir shop, and yes, I left with my own wand. And it's a betrayal, it doesn't work (I probably should have returned it). Otherwise, I think if you want to save money, you can compare prices for items you'd like to buy as merch and consider if it's worth buying elsewhere (like at imago!) – the price difference for some items is quite large, and their prices are quite inflated.

So, how long were we in the studios? A solid eight hours – of course, we could have walked through faster and not stopped everywhere. However, we went to England for the studios, we set aside a whole day for them, and we really spent it there without being bored for a single second. We left full of experiences, and I dare say we weren't there for the last time. The dragon in the ruins of Gringotts Bank really stuck in my memory; I'll want to see that again, and not just on a video on my phone. The same goes for the feeling when the doors to the Great Hall open before you, or when you walk through Diagon Alley – just for that, it's worth visiting again.

What's great about the London studios? They are constantly adding new locations to the exhibition, so this year they added the Divination classroom, which we couldn't see last year. Plus, they have themed periods during which the studios are decorated for Halloween or Christmas. So, die-hard fans can return again and again and always encounter something new.

The overall impression of our visit? If you're still waiting for your Hogwarts letter, don't wait any longer! Studios await you in London that every Harry Potter lover should visit at least once in their lifetime, and the sooner, the better. But even someone only slightly or not at all kissed by the wizarding world shouldn't hesitate to visit the studios – to look under the hood of how one big pop-culture cult was cooked up. The visual side of the studios is also an unrepeatable experience. And who knows, maybe even a Muggle will cross over to the right side of the Force after such an excursion (but that's a different fandom).

And don't forget to visit imago.cz for all the necessary props and other wizarding products. Your adventure starts right now!

author Jana Mrkvicová