Chillin’ like a villain RCL Anthem May 2024. Day 1. Harry Potter Sudios

[vampiress88]

Day 1. Saturday

We were up early at 7am as our alarms went off. We waited for the kids to get up from the playroom bed but they were fast on, after a shower we woke them and they opened the hogwarts letter and saw all the hogwart sweets we had that had come through the door. They were excited now as they only knew about the cruise.
They got dressed and had breakfast and we were on our way by 8.30am.

We stopped at our normal stop of Watford gap for the toilet on the way down and had an apple and pain au chocolat from the house as that’s what needed using. We were a bit early getting there for 11.30am but traffic had been good. We parked and went to the cafe while we waited for our tour to start.

At the cafe we got a few things we probably shouldn’t have, you know when your a kid in a candy shop well it was that kind of feeling so I didn’t really have a concept of money, just ohh I want to try that and now that I’m the adult I can, I’ll regret it after I’m sure.

The kids had marshmallow wands, we had a butter beer shortbread, cafe latte, mint chocolate milkshake and a golden snitch, they all looked so so cool but they were all a bit cloggy and looked a lot better than tasted. I wish we had just stuck to coffee. Cost me £30.10. Butter beer is half way though the tour, otherwise we will wait for dinner now.

We got a magnet from Harry Potter shop for £6 then started the tour a little early at 12.20.

We saw lots of cool prop sets, I think the forbidden forest was my favourite. It didn’t take as long as I thought it would, I think maybe we didn’t find it as interesting as other people do. I think the theming would be similar at universal studios in Florida when we go back.

We were done by 1.45. So we decided instead to go to a pub nearer to the hotel, We got there and it was on a little canal and looked very quaint but it was absolutely packed so we didn’t stop, we just moved on to the other pub where we were planning to have dinner at.

It was very sunny and we sat in the beer garden for a few drinks, kind of felt out of place though as it was very full of local people so we didn’t stay very long. Spent £28.60

We went and checked in at the hotel. It looked nice and clean enough.

We had a double bed and the kids had a sofa bed to share. We thought we might eat at the hotel’s restaurant but after having a drink for £15.20 there we decided to try the M&S food hall in the petrol station across the road. We ended up with a meal deal each and some extra crisps and biscuits for £33.95.

This was more because we didn’t like the looks of those pubs rather than saving money as we don’t tend to do that. Once we are on holiday we kind of spend what we want. Maybe that’s due to how both me and Scott were brought up in that there would be a picnic cooler in the boot with horrible sandwiches in and rarely got to eat out on holidays.

We ate in the hotel room our sandwiches and wraps while we watched a very weird murder mystery movie, we were all in bed and asleep by 10. Scott managed to fall asleep before all of us.

Today hadn’t quite lived up to expectations, hopefully tomorrow will be better.