Warner Bros. Studio-Harry Potter

We are going New Year's Day with Golden Tours. I will post how it went afterwards. We could have taken the train but decided on letting someone else get us there. Plus you watch one of the movies on the bus ride to get in the spirit.

I haven't been to the experience but in the course of my work I see hundreds of people who have or are going.

On the train it is trivially easy - any London Midland train from Euston Station to Watford Junction, cross the bus forecourt to stop 4, board the dedicated bus to the experience, go round, and do it again in reverse.

There are trains at nearly the same time every hour. The fastest trains to Watford Junction are the xx:49 (to Birmingham New Street or Northampton, 1 stop), the xx:54 and the xx:24 (both to Milton Keynes Central, 1 stop). The xx:34 and xx:04 to Tring also work but it is the 3rd stop on those.

The tour bus could be good, I suppose, if it is about the same price and they throw in a movie. Surely to goodness the bus isn't so slow that you can watch a movie in the short journey?

Euston to Watford Junction by train is as short as 14 minutes by train or as slow as 20 minutes on the Tring trains. You wouldn't see much movie in 14 minutes.

If both children are under 16, cost for a family of 4 with return rail tickets and studio shuttle bus is $260. If any over 15 then admission and train fares leap up. It's hard to believe this is a good use of time/ money for a short trip to London. Be sure to read some of the average / poor / terrible tripadvisor reviews (they're under Leavesden). Seems like seeing a genuine, historic or cultural attraction and then rewatching the movies back home makes more sense. There are also the walking tours of HP London filming sites for less.

If you read the lower ranked reviews there's a lot about the pricy gift shop as mentioned, and rude staff. Also the post-Paris security where the gift shop and restaurant are now off limits to unticketed people and the poor woman who had dropped people off and wanted to wait for them, reluctantly returned to her car to read a book, then was told by a guard she couldn't wait in her car either.

How about a day trip to Cambridge and see the real dining hall the one at Hogwarts is based on? Platform 9-3/4 at Kings Cross is free, but kind of a circus.

I think Tom alluded to this above, but London Walks does a few Harry Potter-themed walks (www.walks.com). I've not done the HP walks, but the other walks I've taken with LW have been well done and great fun.

I've been on the tour twice. If you enjoyed Harry Potter, you will enjoy the tour. If you have any interest in filmmaking you will like it more. Like Emma and Nigel mention, getting there on your own is dead simple without paying for a bus tour.

There are detailed instructions on the studio tour website, but the here's the summary: Get to London Euston Station, train to Watford Junction, shuttle bus from Watford Junction to the Studio. Bring cash for the bus at Watford Junction. Error on the side of getting there early. Use the cash you save to buy a butter beer.

Consider the audio tour if you want to hear stories told by the movie crew and actors. It's a neat to have them in your headphones to narrate your visit for you.

Buying photos from the green-screen broom ride is over-the-top expensive, but it's still a fun experience to watch each other do it.

So much good information and input. Thank you all! If it were just me and my husband, this would not even be on our radar, but my children want a very different London experience, and it's their first trip time to England and the European Continent. Once they've seen the iconic London landmarks, they just want to have fun--no tours and as few museums as possible (LOL). When I was sixteen we saw the power plant featured on Pink Floyd album cover--the most memorable part of MY 16 year old London experience 35 years ago, so I'm keeping that in mind. The one question I didn't ask is how much, approximately, will taking the train cost for 3 adults and one child? I tried going to the website, but found information gathering for train fares a bit confusing. Thanks again to everyone for sharing all your wisdom.

The cheapest would be a Groupsave (where the whole group stays together both out and return) Anytime Return. Assuming that you have 2 adults, one adult age teen who is 16, 17, 18 or 19, and one child age teen who is under 16 on the day of travel,

1 x Child - Anytime Day Return £8.35

3 x Adult - Anytime Day Return £50.10

GroupSave discount applied - £16.95

Total £41.50

Using Pay As You Go or Contactless, the fare is from 10 pp.

Clux: as long as you are OK with the costs, which are on the high side. In a sense London is like Orlando as to high priced admissions.

My children were quite happy with stuffier sites (British museum, a matinee at the Globe -- Julius Caesar-- worked for a 13 year old, and 5pm service at Westminster) so don't sell them short.

Rail fares in Europe seem to always be complicated, but we have used the groupsave ticket described by Nigel above-- these can be very low on Sundays.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time at Warner Bros Studio. The artistry that went into the films was amazing. I would recommend it.

Thanks for the feedback, Roberta, but please don't leave it at that..... you tempted us by saying you would use the tour bus to the studios, and that you would also see a movie on the tour bus.

It is time to spill the beans.

What did you think of the tour-bus experience? Was it on time? Was it crowded? Comfortable? Worth the extra money? Could you see and hear the movie? Would you recommend it to a best friend?

Please let us know. We have all sorts of reports about taking the train there but none or very few about taking the Golden Tours approach.

Please help...

We have all sorts of reports about taking the train there but none or very few about taking the Golden Tours approach.

There is a reason for that. Why would you pay more than taking public transport? You would only see a small portion of any film shown (on a tiny screen) in the time you have, which everyone on the bus has seen a hundred times.

"How about a day trip to Cambridge and see the real dining hall the one at Hogwarts is based on?" - or tour the Houses of Parliaming, including Westminster Hall which I always thought was the one that Hogwarts is based on, but is where King Charles I was put on trial, and any number of other historical events happened. Though that's pricey too.

My husband and son went to the studios while we were in London. It was super easy to take the train, then they shuttle you from the train station. They managed it all quite easily. And they thought it was really amazing. :) Plus.... butterbeer. Yum yum!!

Kim

I actually had a question to add to this. We are from the Orlando, Florida area and go to Universal Studios quite often because we have the annual pass. If you have been, you know they have Hogwarts/Hogsmeade, King's Cross, and Diagon Alley attractions. I was looking at the website for the Warner Bros tour and the pictures they had up were almost identical to what we see at Universal when we go.

My question is, what else besides what Universal has does this tour have to offer? It is worth our money to go? I guess I'm confused about what exactly this tour offers. Thanks!

It's not a theme park with rides like the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. It's the sets, costumes, props, etc., from the actual films. I went a couple of years ago, and plan to go again this fall.

Post tour--it was FANTASTIC! We decided to just take the train and as soon as you step out of the station, you just board the double-decker bus with Harry Potter painted all over it, pay the driver 2.50 each, and it drops you off at the door of the studio. Saved us a ton of $$ and we could make our own schedule. So many things from the movie--we were constantly star struck. It's not the universal Theme park re-creation, but the actual sets the movie's were shot on--WOW! After 10 days doing London and Paris....a trip that included the London Eye, the British Museum, the Louvre, the Palace of Versaille and the Eiffel Tower, my kids say the most memorable part of the trip was the Harry Potter tour----kids{eyeroll}

I'm so glad that the train and bus worked out for you.

What time of day were your train trips? Any issues at all?

Nigel,

Had a 10:30AM entry so we got an early start. I think we were on the train by 9:00. Managed to board the non-express and still got to Warner brothers 1/2 hour early (got on the express heading back to central London, much faster). Left WB about 3:00pm Road on the upper level of the bus headed back, so my Son had his London double-decker bus experience. We went from RER to the British Museum which was half way between WB studios and our hotel and had extended hours on Friday so that detour made sense and would not have been possible if we had taken a tour bus. It was literally impossible to get lost using the train and you can't miss the bus and saved us about $50 to boot, so I can't think why the tour seemed like a good idea at the start (LOL).

Thanks to everyone for your input. Gave us the courage to branch out.