Warner Bros. Studio Tour London – The Making of Harry Potter Tips & Tricks

It feels like our family did a million activities on our recent trip to London, but out of everything my husband says the Warner Bros. Studio Tour London aka “The Making of Harry Potter” was his favorite! And he’s never even read the books.

In this article, I’m sharing our best Harry Potter studio tour tips to help you make the most of your time there – from getting the right tickets to what to eat (and what to avoid) and more.

Want to find out more? See how we fit this day trip from London into our broader London with kids itinerary, or take a listen below to hear some of our behind-the-scenes impressions:

You can also listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube or wherever you get your podcasts.

Buy your tickets well in advance – or expect to pay a lot more

I’ve got good news and bad news about getting tickets to Warner Bros. Studio Tour London.

The good news is that you can almost always score tickets for the day you want to go, even the night before.

The bad news is that direct tickets sold by Warner Bros. sell out weeks or even months in advance, particularly for weekends and morning time slots.

So what’s the story? Purchasing a ticket directly from the studio costs £58.50 (~around $80 as of this writing). Those tickets are for sale on their own or as part of a package – you pick what you want to pay for. If you go this route, you’ll most likely take the easy 20 minute direct train from London to Watford Junction at a cost of around £20 roundtrip (the exact fare depends on the time of day). If you’re a family of two adults and two kids, you’ll only pay £188 (~$250) for admission and ~$80 for the roundtrip train (since kids with a “youth discount” on their Oyster card travel at half price). It’s not a cheap day trip from London, but at $330 total it’s one that a lot of families on vacation can swallow.

But if you’re booking last-minute, there’s a good chance many of the most desirable tickets will have been bought by tour operators. Because Warner Bros. doesn’t permit them to resell standalone tickets, those tickets are always going to be bundled into a “tour”. Typically that means you’ll take the Underground to a designated meeting spot in London and then ride the bus all the way to Leavesden – which can be up to 90 minutes each way if traffic is bad.

And then there’s the cost. A Harry Potter studio “tour” from London is in the neighborhood of $450 to $500 for a family of four. But looking ahead, I see some dates where the exact same tour from the same provider is pushing $700 – while the direct tickets are plentiful and still just £188 for a family.

Even worse, some of the “tours” don’t include transportation at all – they bundle in something totally unrelated like a cruise on the Thames. That’s fine if it’s an activity you want to do and sometimes there’s an awesome last-minute deal, but you could wind up paying more for your tickets and still have to navigate to Watford Junction on your own. If you either prefer the bus option or you’re stuck with it because you need a last minute ticket, make sure you read the fine print to understand what you’re getting… and what you aren’t.

If you’ve waited until the last minute and the time slots you want are all sold out via the Warner Bros. website, you’ll be out of luck and your only option will be to purchase a pricey tour package.

Go in the evening

The first tickets to sell out are typically the morning slots, and due to my own procrastination we got early evening tickets. It actually turned out great!

According to the guides I spoke with, the evenings tend to be less crowded – in part because there are more of the bus tours in the morning and mid-day.

As a bonus, you can do another activity in the morning before you head to Leavesden mid-afternoon. We visited The British Museum in the morning, which is just about 15 minutes from Euston Station. You could also opt to visit The British Library, which is even closer to the station and only takes about an hour to go through.

Time your departure from London

Based on the timestamps in my photos, it was exactly 60 minutes from Euston Station to the Warner Bros. Studio Tour entrance. Some of the trains are actually faster than the one we took so you might be able to get there even faster!

The line you’ll take is a commuter rail operated by West Midlands Railway, primarily serving those who live near Watford and work in London. That means you’ll have greater frequency of trains leaving London in the afternoon – sometimes as often as every five minutes. If you choose to tour Harry Potter studios in the morning, check the train schedule since some departures are 15 minutes apart.

Once you get to Watford Junction, you’ll see signs everywhere pointing you to the free shuttle that takes you to the studio. Just go out to the parking lot and wait in the queue with everyone else and you’ll be there before you can say alohamora.

Linger in the Great Hall

Pretty much everything at the exhibition is a self-paced walkthrough or a program that occurs with some frequency (maybe every hour, for example).

The one exception is your visit to the Great Hall right at the beginning. You’ll enter with a large group of people, and at some point you’ll get kicked out so the next group can come in.

Do yourself a favor and don’t rush out. Obviously you shouldn’t overstay your welcome, but if you’d like a photo of your group in the Great Hall without a million people behind you then wait it out and be among the last of your group to move on.

Skip the food offered (but get the butterbeer!)

Do yourself a favor: bring food with you from London.

We didn’t do that due to our timing and my desire to try the food at Warner Bros. Studio Tour “for science”, and I seriously regret my choice.

Perhaps I would have felt differently if I’d gone for one of the salads, but we opted to get a few things to share as a family at The Backlot Cafe which serves as the rest point half-way through your experience. Nearly everything we ordered was terrible and it was also expensive: a plain burger is £15 (~$20). Everything is pre-made so there’s no ability to modify for dietary preferences or medical needs. The only gluten-free options on the menu are two salads and the “wings & loaded fries” section.

The bright spot, naturally, is the butterbeer. The classic drink, which is served in a plastic souvenir cup for £8, was tasty as always. But even the butterbeer ice cream was a let down for us.

The Food Hall – which is in the Studio Hub where your tour begins and ends – has a wider range of food offerings including pizzas and entrees. But unfortunately it closes as early as 5pm so we weren’t able to try it (some days it’s open as late as 8pm). I’ve heard that’s better than The Backlot Cafe, and hopefully someone out there who has tried both can drop a comment below with their experience!

Check out the demonstrations

While the majority of what you’ll see at the Harry Potter Studios tour is self-guided walk through exhibits, there are some really neat live demonstrations you don’t want to miss.

First off, you’ll learn the secrets behind quidditch – both how the game is played and how it’s filmed for the movies.

Second, in the courtyard outside of The Backlot Cafe there’s a really neat demonstration about sound editing. There are some secrets I can’t share, but you’ll learn about the art of foley and how it’s used in the Harry Potter movies. My daughter even got to contribute her skills as a participant!

Don’t short-change the second half

If there’s one regret – other than the food I mentioned above – it’s that we didn’t have quite enough time to do the second half of the exhibit justice.

Broadly speaking, the first half has some really big stuff – many of the massive sets like the Gryffindor common room, Ministry of Magic, Dumbledore’s office, the Knight Bus, Hogwarts Express and more. We spent just over two hours going through that.

But the second half – after the cafe – is great too! In the courtyard you can walk through the Dursley’s House and the herbology greenhouse, then you’ll go back inside to learn the secrets of makeup and costuming that turn human actors into very interesting looking characters like goblins. Plus you’ll see the interior of Gringott’s, a huge scale-model of Hogwarts and more – I don’t want to ruin some surprises!

But suffice it to say, you won’t want to rush through the last parts. In total we were on site for almost exactly 4.5 hours (including a food stop that got extended due to an exploding ketchup pump) and we could have used a little more time.

Rent the audioguide (but save money)

The audioguide at Warner Bros. Studio Tour London definitely adds to your experience. There are great explanations of the things you’ll see, interviews with people involved in the film production and fun behind-the-scenes snippets.

Each one comes with a small touch screen, so a kid who has basic reading and iPad skills will do just fine.

My initial inclination was to rent two audioguides for our family of four and share them, but there are two issues with that. First, everyone was going at a different pace (even more than we usually experience at museums).

Second, the style of headphones they provide can’t be split on their own. You’d need to either use a headphone splitter or one of these (which we stupidly left at our hotel in London) and bring your own headphones.

But the simpler solution is just to rent an audioguide for everyone in the family. Thankfully, the pricing is very reasonable. I booked two ahead to get the discounted rate of £4.75 each (regularly £5.75). But when we showed up on-site, there was a much better deal: £15.95 for the four of us! Thankfully the staff member handling the audioguides shared our frustration and said that it happens all the time so they only charge the difference.

So it all worked out in the end, just plan from the get-go on each person having their own audioguide (if they’re old enough to manage it).

Bring a battery pack

Last but not least, there’s no question that you’ll want to take a million pictures and videos during your visit! You’ll also probably be checking train schedules, looking up restaurants, and doing all the other things we do when we’re traveling. The last thing you want is to have your phone run out of juice as you’re staring at Hogwarts castle (and you still need to check the train schedule for your return ride).

These days we typically travel with two portable chargers and bring them out with us every day. This one plugs directly into our phones without a cable, so it’s convenient to store and also to use while we’re walking around. I also have this one as a backup since it clips to the outside of my backpack (meaning I don’t have to search for it when I need it) and it also charges our Apple Watches.

Another alternative is to use a magnetic power bank – in many ways it’s the most convenient option. However, we use these cell phone cases that secretly store a drivers license and credit card so magnetic charging isn’t an option.

Wrapping up

Check out these other resources to help you plan your family’s trip to London and beyond:

• Our 5 Day London with Kids Itinerary: Ambitious but Doable
• Where to Stay in London with Kids on Points (by Program)
• Paris with kids: 5 tips for an amazing family trip to Paris
• London with Kids: What We Loved, What Surprised Us, and What We’ll Do Differently Next Time (Podcast)
• London vs. Azores Recap: A Kid’s Take (Podcast)
• How We Planned London & Azores on Points (Podcast)