April 19th - Harry Potter!

This morning I woke up at 6:45 AM! Why and exclamation point? It's Harry Potter day! Kate and I head to Liverpool Street Station at about 8:10., got to Euston Station, and bought our train tickets for our journey.  Once tickets were bought Kate needed to exchange money, so we did that (we still had about 25 minutes until our train left). We then got on the train and waited until it left, and headed to Watford Junction.

Once at Watford we waited at the station and figured out where the bus would pick us up. We eventually found it and waited about 15 minutes with everyone else waiting to go also. The bus was cool, all decked out in Harry Potter (One of the few pictures I have right now)

Bus to bring people from Watford Juction to the Studio Tour!

Once at the studio tour we picked up tickets without a problem and then went inside. The first room has an entrance to the tour, a cafe area, and a gift shop. We waited for out tour in the gift shop. It was incredible! There was so much Harry Potter everywhere. They had really cute house sweaters, but they were over 50 pounds, so I decided not to. I pretty much chose what I wanted to get people, though there was so much stuff I really wish I had more money.

The front entrance to the building

About 10:25 we queued up and looked at Harry Potter's cupboard under the stairs as we waited to go in.  Once through the first set of doors to begin the tour. We entered the first room which was a small hall with electronic posters on the wall with the movie posters from different movies from all over the world which was pretty cool. We then watched a short film about how the movie came about from the books. After that we went into a theatre looking room with lots of comfy chairs. So we took a seat and watched another short film about all the work that goes into the film, such as the costume designers, makeup artists, etc. And how the movie really cam into being. At the end of the short film the doors of the Great Hall appeared, and the screen rose, revealing... the doors to the Great Hall (unfortunately I have no pictures at the moment for that though I really wish I did). The Great Hall was beautiful, a couple of my favorite parts were the dress of Helena Ravenclaw, and the gargoyles which each houses mascot on the wall. In addition to those there were  several of the Hogwart's Professor's Robes, which were really cool.

Once through the Great Hall I learned about the producers and directors, a small model of the ceiling of the hall, the front gates of Hogwarts, props and costumes from the Yule Ball (including Hermione's Dress) Hagrid's Hut, Gryffindor boys dormitory, the Gryffinder Common Room, a big Pendulum, Dumbledore's Office, Dolores Umbridge's office, the Weasley's Burrow, the Potions room, Ministry of Magic "Magic is Might" statue, and props from different things including the triwizard cup, rememberall, time turner, the golden snitch, Ravenclaw's Diadem, Gaunt's Ring, Salazar Slytherin's locket, Riddle's Diary, the snakes blocking the chamber of secrets, and gringotts vaults door. It was so cool!

After that area, I moved into the outside part, where I got to see Tom Riddle's grave, Privet Drive, the Potter's Cottage, The Knight Bus (3 story bus!), Hogwart's Bridge, and Wizards chess pieces! That part was fun and then I moved into the next part. The next part was all the creatures and makeup artist type stuff, and animatronics department (such as Hagrid's head!). I saw the models of all sorts of characters, including Dobby! I also saw the Monster Book of Monsters, an owl that moves, mandrakes, I think Voldemort's little body which was really really creepy. In the next room there was Buckbeak and a dragon, and a basilisk head! The next room was another one of my favorites: Diagon Alley! It was so cool, the front of Gringotts was there was well as all the shops on a cobblestone type road. There was Ollivander's, an ice cream parlor, the robe making shop, and all sorts of awesome shops.

Once through Diagon Alley I moved into the design department with all the white model things of the castles and all the sets so they could decide on camera angles when they were figuring everything out. After all the little models the next room was possible my favorite: the model of Hogwarts they used for all the sweeping shots and the ones farther away from the castle. It was really awesome to see the entire grounds of Hogwarts with all the buildings and everything. After the model there was the last room with tons of wand boxes everywhere. Each wand box had a different name on it, and they are the 4000 or so people who worked on the film. It was a really cool way to do credits.

The end of the tour

After the studio tour we went through the gift shop again and went shopping, I got a couple keychains for people and a time turner keychain for myself (cause it was really really cute!) Of the day my few favorite things were Ravenclaw's Diadem which had on it inscribed "Wit beyond measure is mans greatest treasure". It was beautiful. Another of my favorites was Diagon Alley, it was so cool to walk down, my other favorite was the model of Hogwarts Castle. It was an absolutely incredible ending to the tour. You know, pretty much everything was really cool, lol.