Guide to buying Harry Potter Warner Bros. Studio Tour London tickets - which is the best deal?

If you're like me...

I'm torn between spending for the best experience because I'm crazy for Harry Potter stuff, and paying a reasonable price at the same time.. then let me tell you what I figured out so you can decide better.

Types of tickets

If you go to Warner Bros' official website, you'll see these 2 tickets.

My first instinct was to go with the Deluxe Tour because of the 2.5h guided tour, aaaand the Butterbeer.

The rest of the inclusions I did not understand what they were until I was already inside. Luckily, I've been inside and I can tell you the secrets!

The Studio Tour at £53.5 is just the entry, but it includes a round trip bus transfer from Watford Junction, which is easy to get to.

It's a timed entry, but no time limit to get out, so if you get in at 10am, you can spend a whole 12 hours inside! So make sure you get a morning slot.

Also, you can purchase the digital guide for only £5.25 which includes tons of bonus videos and walkthroughs every section. I bought the special blu-ray discs before for a fortune, and I can recall seeing some similar behind-the-scene videos here so it's totally worth it.

I personally spent 6 hours going through all the videos, props, locations, etc so I say getting the digital guide is totally worth it and I felt that I didn't need the personal guided tour.

But what about the butter beer?

You can buy it for £7.45 (a bit costly because you get to keep the cup!) at the cafe. It was a bit sweet for me so I was glad to share it with my friend.

And, for the green screen experience, you'll find 3:

1. Prisoner of Azkaban wanted poster (still)
2. A video of you riding the broom across different scenes (a must try even if you don't buy!)

Prices are £14 for one photo, £20 for two photos. £40 for digital copies of 1 and 2. Since #2 is an individual experience, you can add another person for £20 each so there's some group savings as well.

3. Hogwarts Express moving photo (a short video, like a wizard picture)

The 3rd green screen experience is in another area, so it has a separate pricing but if I were to get one it would be the broomstick video.

So to answer the question, which ticket to get? I'd say get the studio tour + digital guide then just buy butterbeer and the green screen experience inside so you can just decide there.

This makes your total upfront cost of £58.75 / person.

Oh no, the tickets from the official site are sold out

A lot of people will tell you you need to book in advance, and you can buy as early as 6 months early.

This is highly recommended if you're a big group and you have limited time.

We're just 2 people, with 3 weeks to spare so I had plenty of time to wait for the best deal to show up.

Upon arriving in London, I was shocked that the tickets from the official site during our stay were either sold out or only the afternoon entries remain.

Understanding Golden Tours' offers

Then I found out that Golden Tours, the biggest official partner of the Warner Bros Studio tour, buys tons of tickets, that's why the tickets on the official gets sold out fast.

So I checked Golden Tours' website and see the following packages.

I made some notes too as I understood them only after going through the studios.

Commuting to Harry Potter Studios is easy

I originally considered getting round-trip transfer packages from Golden Tours because I was not familiar with London, but it's pretty easy to get there, and cheaper too.

If you buy the cheapest round trip package from Golden Tours, you still need to spend £5.6 round trip for subway or £3.5 round trip for bus, on top of their package cost.

All Harry Potter tickets come with the round trip bus from Watford junction already so all you had to do was to commute to Watford junction and there's a bus running every 20 minutes.

We didn't wait that long. There are signs everywhere too.

Our total round trip cost commuting from Central London to Watford was only £18.

You can use the app Citymapper or Google Maps to check the route.

Finding last minute HP Studio tickets

After realizing that the price from the official site was just £53.50 and commuting only costs £18, I was determined to get my ticket straight from the official site.

So I bookmarked the checkout page and I would check every few minutes to see if any tickets have freed up.

In the end I was able to get tickets after a few hours of checking for tickets. I believe you can do the same. Or.. just buy one of Golden Tours' packages if you don't have the luxury of time.

More tips on saving money: You can bring food and water inside ;)

If you're a super fan, I'd free up my whole day for this.

Here's a bonus to hype you up, the actual scaled Hogwarts used for filming!