The Wonderful World of Harry Potter--Warner Bros Studio Tour Part Two!

Finally the gates opened, and our group entered the Forbidden Forest! It was small but spooky, with fog rolling across the path and eerie sounds. Since it was dark, I didn't get many great pics--but Buckbeak and Voldemort's robes were a highlight.

 
 
 
 
 
At the back of the forest were Aragog and some of his children--he occasionally pops up out of his web. Also, lots of people who were recording got a guest appearance from Elowen yelling "SPIDER! SPIDER!" in excitement.

 
 
From the Forbidden Forest you walk through King's Cross and can explore the Hogwart's Express. At this point, Elowen was hungry and letting us know she was NOT happy...so there aren't many pictures other than the fun photo ops from the train. Despite her hanger, Elowen proved herself a natural actress pretending to be afraid of the Dementor.

 


After King's Cross and before you finish the tour, Warner Bros has very cleverly put a cafe where you can get light snacks. And butterbeer! As you can tell from the picture, Elowen was disgruntled.
 
 
 
After a little sustenance, Elowen was amenable to carrying on with a little enthusiasm (Taylor and Keith, who don't like Harry Potter, were quickly losing enthusiasm at this point).So we headed to Privet Drive to visit the Dursleys and see Harry's bedroom. I loved the recreation of the house...it was so well done.
 
 
 
 
 

 
The Weasleys' house the Burrow and the Knight Bus! (It looks just like the Knight Bus at Universal.)  

 
 
 
 
Me on a recreation Hogwarts walkway. 
 
 
 
And the final leg of the outside part, the herbology classroom! This was so well-done too--lots of costumes and greenery, and you can even pull up a mandrake that screams.
 
 
 
 
After herbology, you walk through a hallway about the special effects--I particularly liked all the characters Warwick Davis played. But the pictures themselves aren't that interesting without the accompanying explanatory plaques, so I've just shared a few.


 
 
I LOVED that creepy little thing behind Elowen. They really missed a profit opportunity not selling those in the shop.  


Next up, the final part of the studio tour!!















Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Otherworldly Magic in the Puzzlewood and a Visit to Hereford

Image
Our second full day in the Cotswolds was supposed to be rainy and also it was a bank holiday, so we didn't think we'd be able to find parking or enjoy the little towns we had slated for the day. Instead, we decided to drive to Puzzlewood (which was actually very close to our hotel in Wales) and then visit the Cider Museum in Hereford, both things I'd really wanted to do and was feeling angsty about missing.      Puzzlewood is an ancient woodland (dating back at least 10,000 years) in the Forest of Dean, in Gloucestershire England. A local landowner laid down a mile of windy, maze-like pathways in the 1800s for his children, friends, and neighbors, and it later opened as a tourist attraction in the 1900s.  I wanted to make sure we had it mostly to ourselves, so we were there and in line at the ticket office before the gates even opened--then we dashed in!       It's even more glowy-green and otherworldly than it looks in the pictures, and it truly feels...
Read more

Christmas Magic in London, Part One

Image
Since London is a huge and historic city with endless things to do, you can't visit without doing something new (even if you're staying for fewer than 48 hours). So first up on the agenda--the Dickens Museum! Dickens lived there for two years, from 1837 to 1839, and it's the only house in which he lived that's left standing. Also he wrote Oliver Twist there! And while Dickens isn't my personal top-tier Victorian author, I'm up for any literary site and especially any insight into Victorian times. In another life, I'm a Victorianist at an East Coast college, wearing wooly sweaters while I read in my toasty office. I don't know why so many of these are sideways...just tilt your head. Anyway, on the lower level you can wander through the kitchen and Dickens' wine cellar, where I learned that Victorian families kept pet hedgehogs to eat bugs. Elowen enjoyed drawing "Bill Spikes" (puns!) while I looked around. On the next floor, Elowen charged ...
Read more

Mdina, the Silent City

Another highlight of Malta (perhaps more legitimate than Popeye's Village) was Mdina, known as the silent city both because no cars are allowed other than those of residents and also because it has only a few hundred residents.  The city gate I'm sure in summer it's pretty packed, but we had the city largely to ourselves...just a few other tourists and some horse and carriages. And it's truly lovely...the streets shine, smoothed by hundreds of years of feet walking through history before you, and there are so many narrow, winding alleys in which to get lost.  It's been inhabited since prehistory, with a Phoenician settlement in 8 BC. Then the Romans captured it and it kept passing hands through the centuries until the Order of St. John (a Catholic military order) took the city over in 1530. It later belonged to the French and then of course the British got it back, and then MUCH more recently it was used as a filming location for King's Landing in the first seas...
Read more