After our long train trip from Glasgow, we arrived in London and went straight to the VRBO apartment. And then right after that we got on another long (but not as long) train ride out to Watford Junction for the Warner Brothers Harry Potter tour. You get off the tube at Watford Junction and then get on the special bus out to the studio (it's impossible to miss, as it's very clearly labeled and it's the only bus stop at the tube station that has a big line of tourists queued up). And then 20 minutes later, you're there!
Once inside, you are escorted first into the Great Hall. Here's Eero with McGonagall and Dumbledore's mannequins behind him.
The next room had a ton of stuff in it, including these props from the big chocolate feast scene:
And these four outfits worn by Daniel Radcliffe (Harry) during a single day on The Deathly Hallows. Note the increasing level of wear and tear as you go from back to front:
Around the corner, there was another big room, and one thing you could do there is do some Defense Against the Dark Arts practice - there was a teacher on video and a kind of proctor who let you pick out which wand to uses. The video guy walked you through about six different wand motions/castings. Here are Cielo and Eero doing an underhand spell in sync:
The big attraction (queue-wise and money-wise) was the 'ride a broom on green screen' feature (you could also ride in the bewitched Weasley car as a group if you wanted). Eero and Cielo both went for the brooms:
The tour is split between two giant soundstage buildings. In between the two of them you can get a ballpark-type lunch (Little League ballpark), but the drink options include butterbeer! It was actually pretty good! And very foamy!
The next building had a lot more stuff, including a great walkthrough of the creature shop work. For example, a robotically animated Buckbeak, and
Aragog the giant spider hovering on the ceiling:
There was also: Gringott's Alley! That's Ollivander's Wand shop on the left, and the store with the giant mannequin sticking out is of course Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes! And Eero was a big fan of the owl shop of course.
The next-to-last attraction is a gigantic scale model of Hogwarts. It was pretty amazing - very detailed, and huge:
The last room (before the gift shop) we didn't get any pictures of, sadly, because it was awesome. It was another wand shop type room, and each wand box had the name of someone who worked on the film - everyone from the stars to production assistants.
And did we mention there was a gift shop?
After the gift shop (yes, that is a toy Crookshanks) we got back on the last scheduled bus to the Watford Junction tube stop.