Hi everyone! Today I’m back to share with you how wonderful a weekend I had last week when my brother and I headed to London for ‘A Very Potter Weekend!’.

Last weekend was the BIG Potter weekend we had been planning for over a year. We set off from Cardiff and after many hours of travelling, rain, thunder, trains, tubes and so on, we finally arrived at the Harry Potter Studio tours in Leavesden. Do not be fooled, this was not our first time, in fact I think it may have been our sixth! But it was just as magical as always and I still came away having had the best experience and with plenty of goodies.

I absolutely love seeing all of the sets and props that were used in making my favourite ever film series (and just general thing ever). I’m sure that every time I go I still notice something new that I didn’t the previous time. The talent of the costume designers, prop makers, set builders and designers still blows my mind! It is certainly something very special to be able to see everything at the Studios. There were a lot more costumes out on display this time too which was great to see and there were definite additions from our previous visits. I can’t remember if we found all of the Golden Snitches which are dotted around the tour, we lost count due to our excitement!

The biggest new addition to the studios since our last visit was the Forbidden Forest. I may, or may not, have had a rather large screaming fit in the middle of the Forest when the spiders were moving and then the thunder and lightning started. Talk about ticking off the boxes of things I’m most scared of. It was super creepy but don’t worry if like me you are scared of spiders, there was a way to avoid them and go through. My brother had much fun filming me walking through the Forest and getting my best reactions! I do love how they constantly add sets and props to the tour as it definitely makes it worth going back for multiple visits.

Aside from first entering the Great Hall, walking around the corner onto Platform 9 and 3/4 always makes me tingle with excitement. I love that they added this to the tour a while ago. As are many of us, I am still (im)patiently awaiting the arrival of my Hogwarts letter (things get lost in the owl post for 16 years, right??) so seeing the beautiful Hogwarts Express in its full glory is rather wonderful. You can walk through the train too and it’s full of yet more fab props.

After several hours of perusing the props, costumes and sets, it was finally time for a rest and some well deserved treats. It definitely isn’t a trip to the Studios without having some Butterbeer, although it is VERY sweet so we shared one small cup of it for old times sake. We both prefer the Butterbeer ice cream and it was just as gorgeous as I remembered. I think in total we were in the studios for around 3 hours. Then it was off the to shop (which is just as amazing as the tour!) where I treated myself to a Gryffindor necklace, a Time Turner key chain and some sweet Honeydukes treats including a Chocolate Frog!

Saturday was the day we had waited an absolute age for! It had been just over a year since we managed to finally snag our Cursed Child tickets and so we excitedly queued up, went through security checks and made our way to our seats. For obvious reasons I am not going to say much about the show (#KeeptheSecrets) but it may be one of the BEST productions I have ever seen. To this moment I am still convinced they must have used actual magic to do some of the things that we saw! If you get a chance to see this, I really encourage you to do so, you won’t be disappointed!

We had a bloody marvellous weekend, as Ron would say, and I only wish we could do it all over again. I’m sure it won’t be too long before we return to the Studios and who knows, maybe we’ll manage to get Cursed Child tickets again in the distant future!

Have you been to the studio tours, what is your favourite part?

Have you seen Cursed Child? What did you think? (Ps. #KeeptheSecrets!!)

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