We attempted to begin the next morning bright and early. We had Harry Potter Studio Tour tickets for 9:40 and it was quite a train journey from Colliers Wood. Thankfully the slow movers were also very excited for the tour so they dragged themselves from bed. Despite our rushing we did not arrive 20 minutes prior to our ticket time like we were advised. Thank goodness it seems that we are not the first (and probably not the last) to arrive a little late and they let us in! 🙂 We got into the queue (the British love a good queue!) and received our final tickets and 4 darling passports. The passports proved quite helpful later as Charlie made it his mission to complete every task on the list! This was great as it enabled the adults and Katie to look around a little longer.

We entered into a huge open room with a gigantic dragon flying down upon us. We entered another queue and were overrun by school groups! Now, let me tell you I remember going to a one room school house and the Pizza Hut on my school field trip. Can you imagine going to Harry Potter for a field trip! Amazing! We entered the first room and found the cupboard under the stairs. After a few jokes trying to convince Charlie we were going to renovate our basement to include a new tiny room for him we moved on!

We entered the next portion of the tour and it took our breath away! The Great Hall! The set was huge and incredible. Charlie had a mission to find the golden snitch and the rest of us took in all of the costumed characters. There was a section on the use of the green screen and each kid climbed aboard a broom to try it out.

It was about now that we realized this tour was 1. Going to be incredible and 2. Going to take awhile. There’s no way to describe the tour in detail so I’ll just give you our highlights:

1. Liz – Seeing all of the costumes and how detailed they are
2. Erik – The Gringotts bank vault door
3. Katie – learning wand choreography
4. Juliette – The Great Hall and seeing the robes in person
5. Samantha – “flying” on the broom
6. Charlie – Finding the golden snitches (there were a few hidden in each room)

We enjoyed our lunch in the tour cafe and of course tasted some butter beer! Charlie continued to search for snitches and the rest of us learned about sets, make-up, costuming, and more! The final room was the piece de resistance with a large room-sized model of the Hogwarts castle which they used to film many exterior scenes. We checked out the gift shop and then headed out the door.

Wanting to make every minute matter we took the train back into London and then hopped on a double decker bus to find more things to see. The ride didn’t last long as Juliette spotted a sports store through the window and we made a stop in search of a soccer ball. A quick stop yielded a new green ball which she named “Sonny D.” I have a feeling Sonny D will be making an appearance in many of our pictures! While Juliette was happy Katie was not. She was feeling the effects of jet lag and began to fade quickly. So Erik took her on a mission to find a bathroom and something to cheer her up. Evidently sushi does the trick for Katie because they came back feeling better along with a tray of sushi!

We hopped back on the bus and made our way to Kensington Gardens to hunt for the Princess Diana playground. I had read in a tour guide that it was a “not to be missed” park so we decided to make it a priority. The kids LOVED this park. We only had about 45 minutes before the park closed and they used up every minute climbing the giant ship, playing in the stream, and playing with other traveling children.

At this point we needed to find dinner. We wandered the streets for a little bit until we found “Bella Italiana.” Italian is always a hit for us and while the food was delicious the time it took was not! The meal ended up being over 1.5 hours and we were exhausted!

We headed back to “home” via the train. It was quite busy but thankfully a few people gave up their seats for our very tired children. This was great until Charlie feel asleep and just about crashed onto the floor. I decided maybe he needed to sit on my lap and ended up carrying him all the way back!

Some Team Highlights:

• We learned the Gringott’s Bank floor is made of paper!
• The Weasley’s house was built straight and then pulled crooked
• We learned “Bella Italiana” is not Italian for “fast” food
• When a ball is only £4 you get what you pay for – buyer beware
• The hotdogs at Harry Potter are GIANT and Charlie ate the whole thing