Letting A 22 Year Old Loose Around Hogwarts

I told you last week that I went to the Making of Harry Potter Warner Brother's Studio Tour.

Mind = blown.

It's much different than anything I had ever seen before, and blew my expectations out of the water.

Everything is there. Every inch of the tour is covered in props, costumes, sets, secret hidden snitches, etc. I probably missed a lot of stuff, but also found a lot of stuff too (like the sword of Gryffindor is up on a shelf in Dumbledore's Office... It's so discrete and hidden up there!) 

I took about um-teen thousand pictures that day, but I'm just going to show you a bit of my favorites!

(And if you know me at all, you know that I don't even have to add the "paid for this tour on my own", "am not being sponsored for this", "all opinions are my own". Seriously, I'm a Harry Potter fanatic. It's been my life since I was 11. And all of the above quotes are true anyway.)

(Oh and side note, I say this every time there is a photo-heavy post... My camera is crap. It takes pictures underwater but no part of this tour was underwater so.... Sorry!)

The Great Hall. The real set. A-freakin-mazing! So many costumes, including the Hogwarts robes through the years of filming!

Gryffindor Common Room with costumes from the 3rd film. Filled with props and random trinkets. Literally could have looked in there for hours. (By the way, did you know that the character Dean Thomas is a West Ham fan?! The things you learn in the studio tour....)

Dumbledore's Office with everything in it, including the Pensieve and the Phoenix entryway. These are the robes from Richard Harris, the actor who played Dumbledore in the first two films. The robes of Michael Gambon (Dumbledore in the rest of the films) are in the Great Hall.

I've always had a soft spot for the Goblet of Fire book and movie. It's my favorite book in the series and I think I've read it the most times out of all of them! This is the Triwizard Cup and the egg clue from the movie. I freaked out when I saw them!

And look! The top of the egg clue is an owl!! I read the little paragraph on the side of the display where it mentioned the owl opener at the top. Of course I had to get a pic!

Snape in his potion's classroom. I always had faith in Snape throughout the books. I knew he had to be good somehow... Fun fact, I wrote a letter to Alan Rickman (the actor who played Snape) and he sent me his autograph! I was fangirling for years....

The Knight Bus!! The inside was seriously impressive considering it's just a bus! (P.S. it always bugged me that in the movie, Harry didn't tell Stan his name was "Neville Longbottom" on the bus.... In the book he does...)

Privet Drive. The first ever thing you see in the HP films is Privet Drive. It brought me back to being an 11 year old and loving the first film. Fun fact, I've watched the Sorcerer's Stone so many times, I know every single word without the movie even being on... I can start reciting it right now if I wanted to! ("I should have known that you would be here... Professor McGonagall....")

Diagon Alley was probably my favorite set to visit on the tour. It's probably one of my favorite sets in the film anyway! They had every shop from the film and even from the book that you probably never see or hear of in the films.

Ollivanders! The wand shop!

This was seriously impressive. It a model of Hogwarts! But they explain how in the movie, any shots where they go over top of Hogwarts or show it not close up, they've filmed this model. You'd think it was all computers in the movie, but it's not! It's crazy! They have little TVs showing you different parts of the film and how they used this model to film it.

Oh and yes, I'm on the Gryffindor Quidditch Team now. Duh. (When I was younger I actually thought about what position I'd play, and I'd definitely be a Chaser!) This was not only a photo opportunity, but a video opportunity as well! They had you soaring around in the TV screen through London, over lakes, around Hogwarts; it was AMAZING!

And if you didn't already know what a big nerd I am, well now you do! 

Seriously, I've been to the Island's of Adventure Harry Potter theme park, and this was a million, no, trillion times better. I also went with people who weren't particularly fans of Harry Potter, and they loved it! The tour takes about 3 hours, but it doesn't feel boring or time consuming at all! And in the middle, they have Butterbeer! Which also tasted better than the Butterbeer in the theme park to be honest! I had a blast to say the least!

What do you think? Would you spend a few hours here in HP world??