A Trip to the Bank ... Gringotts Bank

Hi there everyone 😀

I’ve long been a fan of Harry Potter and one of the 50 things I really wanted to do before I hit 60 was to visit the Waner Bros Studios to experience the Making of Harry Potter experience. We managed to visit a couple of years ago and were not disappointed. It was a real treat and you can see what we thought on our first visit here.

This last year has seen the addition of a new attraction to the tour ... Gringotts bank ... and I really wanted to visit again to get to see it.

This time we took mum and dad ... mum has read all of the books and seen the films and was really looking forward to it, dad being more interested in all that goes into the production of such huge movies.

In preparation for our visit Martin and I managed to re-watch the last two of the films, and we are so glad we did as we definitely got reacquainted with Gringotts.

It’s a bit of a trek for us but we had a fairly straightforward journey and it was lovely to finally be walking into the studios to be greeted by the dragon that we’d seen guarding the bank vaults in Deathly Hallows.
We were a bit early and were lucky enough to be able to get onto an earlier tour ...
This time we made sure to head for the left hand side as we entered the tour introduction, which we knew would give us a fab position in the cinema.

Even though we’d seen it before our entry to the great hall was every bit as impressive as on our first visit. I hadn't really intended taking many photos but some things were just too good not to capture again ... apologies for the quality though as this time all were taken on my phone ...

It was truly spectacular ...

From the great hall we wandered through the various sets ... the boys' dormitory ...

... the Gryffindor common room, decked out for Christmas ...
... Dumbledore's Office ...

... the Potions Lab ...
This time we got to see a demonstration of The Goblet of Fire ...

... the flying Ford Anglia, being periodically attacked by the whomping willow ...
... the Chamber of Secrets snake door ...

... before heading over to the magic of The Burrow ...
... and being confronted with the meeting of the Dark Lord's followers which was very fresh in our mind from the film we had recently caught up with ...
There was the Ministry of Magic ...
... and the Forbidden Forest ...
... before arriving at Kings Cross Station where mum and I had pictures taken on platform 9 3/4 ...

We then had a quickpitstop in the Backlot Cafe before heading outside and on to the next stage of the tour ...

We were starting to get excited now as we knew that the next stop was what Martin and I were waiting for ... and oh my goodness as it was revealed it took our breath away. It was huge and absolutely beautiful, laid out just as we had seen in The Deathly Hallows ... it was just stunning ... and so big ... my phone photos just don't do it justice at all ...

There were plenty of goblin tellers at work ... they looked fabulous ... and so realistic ...
The whole set was very ably watched over by this guy ...

From the public side of the bank we headed through and into the vaults ...

... where we were able to search Bellatrix L'Estrange's vault for Helga Hufflepuff''s cup ...

We then got to see the bank after it had been pretty much totalled by the dragon during Harry, Ron and Hermione's escape from the vaults ...

We exited the bank at the bottom of Diagon Alley and even though we’d seen it before it was still a firm favourite and we made our way up passing all of the familiar shops ... the apothecary ...

... Scribbulus ...

Ollivanders ...

... and plenty more besides ...

Last but not least was the model of the castle which looked every bit as beautiful as it had the first time we’d seen it and I couldn’t resist photographing it again from every angle ...

Isn't it just stunning?

We exited the tour via The Wand Room and Gift Shop ...

It was our second visit and we still spent about 3 hours on the tour and that was without really hanging about, not reading all of the information boards or watching all of the bits of film. It would be very easy to spend lots longer, especially if you hadn’t visited before, but we were ready to head for home.

We all really enjoyed it. For me, it was better for having reacquainted ourselves with the films, but dad hadn’t watched any of the films and he enjoyed it too ... so even if not a total Potter fan I would say it’s definitely still worth a visit if you are looking for something a bit different to do 😀