If you are a Harry Potter fan, visiting the Making of Harry Potter Warner Bros Studio Tour near London is an unmissable experience!
But it does attract a lot of visitors and it can be noisy and overwhelming, especially if you are autistic, but we found that they really went a long way to make sure that the tour was a great accessible experience for everyone.
This blog is specifically about autism, but they also have put a lot of care into being disability friendly, and you can find information about all their access for people with additional needs here and their Accessibility Guide is here.
They have an Autism Guide with pictures and descriptions of each stage of the tour, so you can learn about what to expect before you go in, so I won’t go into those details here.
On their website they say that all staff have disability awareness training, and we found this to be very true. From the minute we arrived everyone was so lovely and helpful and we had such a great experience!
Tickets
Firstly - please make sure you book your tickets early as these can sell out months in advance! You buy your tickets online here.
The earliest and latest tours of the day are apparently the quietest.
We had a 4pm tour (not deliberately, it was just the earliest available when we booked!) and by the time we were doing the second half of the tour there was hardly anyone else around even though it was the middle of summer, which was great.
They do offer Relaxed Tours, where you can experience the Studio Tour with reduced visitor numbers, changes to lighting and reduced sound levels throughout, however these are not held very often.
You are able to receive one free carer ticket for each paying disabled visitor. These can be added to your booking by purchasing your tickets online for everyone else and then contacting the Visitor Services team with your booking reference number.
They will add the carer ticket to the booking, however you will need to pick up the actual ticket when you arrive at the studio.
To collect your ticket you will need to show proof of entitlement, which can be:
Letter/notice of entitlement for Disability Living Allowance or Personal Independence Payment
Letter/notice of entitlement for Employment and Support Allowance
Freedom pass featuring the D logo or Blue parking badge
DID card or Access Card
Diagnosis or Doctors letter
Or any International equivalent of the above. Your Australian NDIS approval letter should be fine.
Arrival
Your ticket includes travel in a special bus from Watford station.
When you arrive at the Studio, the walk from the bus stop takes you past huge wands and wizard chess pieces, and then there is a queue to join to go in the entrance. There was a staff member at the side of the queue, and when we told her that we had to collect a carer’s ticket, she was very kind and ushered us right to the front.
The person at the ticket office was also lovely and told us exactly where to go to find the information desk, which was just after the security screening.
Sunflower Lanyard and Sensory Bag
When you are inside, head straight to the information desk, where you can pick up a sunflower lanyard and a sensory bag (it is also where you can pick up a passport to stamp as you explore the studio).
The lanyards let the staff know that the person wearing it may need additional assistance or support during their visit. All the staff were honestly amazing at checking if there was anything that we needed throughout our whole day.
The sensory bags are an incredible idea!
They contain ear defenders and a selection of fidgets, which really came in handy as there are some parts of the tour that get loud and overwhelming.
You return your sensory bag to the information desk at the end of your visit, and they are cleaned between uses.
The Tour
At your booked time you go through to start your tour. The first part of this involves a bit of queuing, which I am sure they would have let us skip if we spoke with the staff, however there was lots to see as you waited so we were happy to do so.
Once you reach the front of the queue you go into a holding room, which is quite dark and loud, with screens up high showing different characters talking about the studio and the movies. A staff member took us to the front of the holding room so that it wasn’t so crowded, and so that when we went into the next room (a cinema) we were able to get seats easily.
There was another family with a person in a wheelchair, and honestly the staff couldn’t have been better at making sure that we were all looked after.
After the cinema you enter the studio, starting with the Great Hall. At that point the tour is self paced and the crowd disperses, which makes it a lot easier.
You then follow the studio around, exploring the different sets, costumes and props used in the movies. Some sections were more crowded than others, but there was always somewhere we could go which was away from people if it all became too much.
I won’t spoil it by telling you what you will see, but it is all awesome and gave us such a great understanding of what goes into making the movies!
The Backlot and Sensory Room
At the halfway point of the tour you reach the Backlot. There is a restaurant here (where you can buy butter beer!), as well as toilets and a bubbler to fill up water bottles. You can bring your own food to eat here if you have food issues or allergies.
Near the Backlot Café is the sensory room, which is a calm space for those with autism and other additional needs who need a bit of time out.
It contains a sensory shell chair, bean bags, an interactive light box, mirror ball and tactile mirror tiles on the walls, and is lockable, so other people won’t come barging in.
If you need to use it before you get to the Backlot, you can ask a staff member and they’ll take you there.
After exploring the Backlot, you continue on with the tour, starting with the Creature Effects Department. If your child is easily spooked by animatronic creatures, you may need to walk through quite quickly.
Not to give away any spoilers, but during this half of the tour you go through Gringotts Bank from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.
If you know what happens at that point of the movie, please be warned that it is loud, smoky and quite scary. It might be too much for some, so make sure that ear defenders are on and lots of hugs are given!
From there you go to Diagon Alley, and it is much more peaceful from that point on.
Finishing the Tour
The tour ends in the gift shop, which was very crowded and overwhelming when we were there, so we didn’t spend time in it, we just exited right away.
You can drop your sensory bag back off at the information desk and there are toilets to use before heading out to catch the bus back to Watford Station.
The studio tour is a place where the magic of Harry Potter comes to life, and it really does offer an accessible, welcoming environment for guests with autism and sensory sensitivities!
Accommodation in Watford
As our tour was so late in the day, we decided that rather than get the train all the way back to London afterwards, we'd spend the night in Watford - and I'm so glad we did!
We stayed here and it was amazing - only a minute walk from where the bus leaves for the Studio.
We booked a 2 bedroom apartment, which had it's own kitchen, and was super comfortable. It is in the same building as the Holiday Inn, but we found it to be much cheaper - and so much cheaper than staying in London!
* Please note that the booking.com links here are affiliate links and any bookings made through them will award me a small commission (at absolutely no extra cost for you).
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