Kings Island (KI) Discussion Thread

[prozach626]

Sometime the more you ride something the more you warm up to it. You might get there with Orion.

Also, bravo for making a short TR without one single mention of COVID.

[thrillseeker4552]

I am excited to try Orion next summer, hopefully. I have thoroughly enjoyed every B&M Hyper/Giga I've ridden, but I can also see how Orion may fall short in some areas. It has definitely received some polarizing reviews.

Regardless, whether it's "meh" or amazing, it really looks great. The color scheme, area, and theming seems very nice.

[IntaminLove]

2 hours ago, prozach626 said:

Sometime the more you ride something the more you warm up to it. You might get there with Orion.

Also, bravo for making a short TR without one single mention of COVID.

I've had to warm up to a few coasters before so it's definitely possible. I want to like it more so I'll see what happens. 

We have to deal with virus life every day and hear about it constantly. Last thing I want to do is talk about it. Plus it didn't affect my visit negatively.

[grsupercity]

10 hours ago, thrillseeker4552 said:

I am excited to try Orion next summer, hopefully. I have thoroughly enjoyed every B&M Hyper/Giga I've ridden, but I can also see how Orion may fall short in some areas. It has definitely received some polarizing reviews.

Regardless, whether it's "meh" or amazing, it really looks great. The color scheme, area, and theming seems very nice.

I just rode it for the first time Saturday. My first ride was under whelming. My second ride later in the day was a better seat, felt faster and seemed to be better paced. The speed hill really makes the ride. I would take rides like Fury and Mako over Orion but Orion is still very fun and very rerideable

[coasterbill]

I guess my tastes in coasters aren't that refined.... it goes 91 miles per hour and has a 300 foot drop. That's cool as sh*t. It also has tons of airtime, it's butter smooth, it hauls ass the entire time. It does exactly what you would want a giga coaster to do. thrillseeker, I feel like based on your post you're going to love the thing.

[jonskinny12]

11 hours ago, thrillseeker4552 said:

I am excited to try Orion next summer, hopefully. I have thoroughly enjoyed every B&M Hyper/Giga I've ridden, but I can also see how Orion may fall short in some areas. It has definitely received some polarizing reviews.

Regardless, whether it's "meh" or amazing, it really looks great. The color scheme, area, and theming seems very nice.

I think you'll enjoy the ride. Based on this post and your other posts here. Don't compare it to other rides like most people do, just go enjoy the damn thing. The new theming is cool, the ride looks nice, and yeah it also has a 300 foot drop and goes 91 miles per hour. I loved Orion and rode it over and over. Too short you say? That's fine, just gives me more time to hop back in the FL+ line to walk-on and get back on the 300 foot drop that much sooner.

If I ever get to the point that I just want to complain about a ride like Orion, I'll probably stop going on roller coaster trips.

[VegasBaby]

1 hour ago, coasterbill said:

I guess my tastes in coasters aren't that refined.... it goes 91 miles per hour and has a 300 foot drop. That's cool as sh*t. It also has tons of airtime, it's butter smooth, it hauls ass the entire time. It does exactly what you would want a giga coaster to do. thrillseeker, I feel like based on your post you're going to love the thing.

Haha, this is pretty much my take on Orion as well.  Rode it for the first time this weekend and absolutely loved it.  The first drop is incredible, I was out of my seat the entire way down.  The wave turn is a cool element and something I don't think we've seen on a hyper/giga.  The turnaround pulls some nice Gs and the speed hill has legitimate ejector air, followed by sustained floater air on the next hill.  If I do have a criticism of the ride, it's that it does feel a little short--but that's more because it's hauling ass the entire time and I didn't want the ride to end.  With FL+, we were able to ride it six times. We did 3 rides in the morning and 3 at night, and the night rides felt even faster.  It was the first giga my kids have ridden and all of them said it was their favorite coaster ever. 

[DavidB]

I went the weekend before last and wasn't going to do any sort of report or review, but with this discussion, I'll throw my hat in the ring.

I thought Orion was fantastic.  Millennium Force is the only other giga I've been on.  I hesitate to say Orion was better...but definitely different experiences.  I would say if you're looking for excitement, Orion is definitely ahead in that category.  The airtime is strong, and the elements are exciting.  I would take it over Diamondback hands down, and I like Diamondback.  While there are obviously less "airtime moments" on Orion, they are undoubtedly stronger.  Yeah, you fly into the brakes way up in the air and there's definitely momentum left on the table, and of course at that point it would be great if there was more to it, but in my 3 rides I never felt like it was short like the feeling I got with SFGAm Goliath.   I can't help but feel like the people that have complained about this thing love the smell of their own farts.

The rest of the visit was great with fastlane, because of course it was.  We got on everything except Adventure Express because it was down for part of the day.  Some of the rides had waits (Orion 30 min, MT 20 mins, Beast 20-30 mins towards nighttime) because the park was pretty crowded, but can't complain about those waits knowing how the standby lines were.  The atmosphere was still good with the decorations and everything was done well.  The haunts aren't my interest at all, but I do enjoy the Halloween atmosphere. 

I was with a friend and his step daughter who never had a proper experience with the Beast.  I believe they had only been to the park once before and weren't impressed with it.  We went and rode too early and it was still fairly light out and just let the grouper put us in the middle of the train somewhere.  We went and rode Diamondback and I insisted we go back to the Beast for our last ride, asked the grouper for the front, and had them ride up there.  My buddy told me afterwards that he had told his step daughter not to say anything bad about it because I wanted to ride again and they were again unimpressed with our first ride.  Obviously that opinion changed entirely with the front seat night ride;  they loved it and he said something along the lines of "that's the only way I ever want to ride that again."  I always enjoy sharing experiences like that with my friends.

Still love Banshee as well, and don't understand some of the hate it gets...great speed, with sustained forces and decent intensity.  I prefer this to Raptor...and think Banshee and the Batman clones are my favorite inverts.  Had the back seat on Racer this time, and it beat the hell out of me...I don't mind some jostling, but it was not a good time.

I had a better time with KI than CP a couple weeks earlier, at least this year.  Hoping the forecast for this weekend trends a little warmer over the next couple days as if it's going to get up to about 60 I'd like to go again this coming weekend.   I really do love this park.

[dankeykang]

^Nice report!  I always try to look at the positives after riding a new coaster, and there are plenty of things to like about Orion:

• The chain lift is ridiculously quiet.  I realize most won't care about this but I find it quite pleasant
• The first drop is world class, especially in the back
• During the wave turn, if you're seated on the far left, you can lean outward and stare 175 feet straight down.  Fun.
• This this absolutely flies over the speed hill and the resulting airtime is glorious

Combine all that with the fact that it's a reliable B&M, it's a capacity machine, it complements the other coasters really well, the theming is pretty solid for a CF park, and the operations at KI are always lightning quick, and you have a great overall coaster in my book.  

[PKI Jizzman]

33 minutes ago, dankeykang said:

 

• The first drop is world class, especially in the back
• During the wave turn, if you're seated on the far left, you can lean outward and stare 175 feet straight down.  Fun.
• This this absolutely flies over the speed hill and the resulting airtime is glorious

Combine all that with the fact that it's a reliable B&M, it's a capacity machine, it complements the other coasters really well, the theming is pretty solid for a CF park, and the operations at KI are always lightning quick, and you have a great overall coaster in my book.  

Orion, Fury, all the B&M hyper/giga coasters are so much fun to hang over the side of the seat. You can't do this on more intense coasters and. I love re-riding and looking left/right, behind etc. Fury and Orion are so smooth and fast and comfortable, and the most re-ridable coasters out there. 

[boldikus]

1 hour ago, DavidB said:

  I can't help but feel like the people that have complained about this thing love the smell of their own farts.

Quote of the week.

[prozach626]

12 hours ago, coasterbill said:

it goes 91 miles per hour and has a 300 foot drop. That's cool as sh*t. It also has tons of airtime, it's butter smooth, it hauls ass the entire time.

Sounds boring.

[AmyUD06]

Just spent the first day of two at KI.  Surprisingly not crazy busy. I guess the temps had something to do with it (didn't break 55) and will hopefully help tomorrow too (not expected to get much above 40 all day tomorrow).  That said, Fast Lane definitely made the experience more bearable - waits between walk on to 15 minutes for all rides, while major coasters were posting 45-60 minute waits on the app.  Got two rides each on Beast (would've been 3 if not for a breakdown), Mystic, Banshee, and Orion, and one ride each on Bat, each side of Racer, Adventure Express, Diamondback, Flight of Fear, Windseeker, Drop Tower, and their Troika, with plenty of down time to eat, shop, and take smoke breaks.

Swung by Target after the park to pick up some thermals for the cold, cold day tomorrow.  More to come.

[AmyUD06]

Back from Day 2 at KI to round out the season.  Two more rides on Beast (including the mandatory front-row night ride) and Mystic, and one more ride on Orion, the Bat, Diamondback, Banshee, Woodstock Express, the train, and Boo Blasters.  Fun Fact:  I left the park around 1 and came back around 4:45, and all of the B&Ms were closed for the day due to temperature, which was at 39 degrees when I came back.   Amusingly enough the Beast was posting a 3 hour wait on the app at 5:00.  Asked the ride op at Great Pumpkin if a kid-less adult could get a ride at the very end of the night, but no dice.  Oh well.

Total ride counts for the weekend:

Beast: 4 (all front)
Mystic: 4 (2 front, 1 row 8, 1 back)
Banshee: 3 (2 back, 1 front)
Orion: 3 (2 front, 1 back)
Diamondback: 2 (1 front, 1 back)
Bat: 2 (1 row 3, 1 back)
Racer Red: 1 (row 5)
Racer Blue: 1 (row 11)
Adventure Express: 1 (front)
Flight of Fear: 1 (front)
Woodstock Express: 1 (back)
Windseeker: 1
Drop Tower: 1
Troika: 1
Train: 1
Boo Blasters: 1
Tom + Chee: 4

I could've definitely gotten more rides in, but was taking it easy to close out the year.

See you in 2021, KI.

[AmyUD06]

And here's some pictures from the last operating day of the year, including some not-frequently-seen shots of Diamondback and Mystic taken from the train ride.

[KIEnthusiast]

This is good news. Racer is being retracked. https://www.visitkingsisland.com/blog/2020/november/more-than-500-feet-of-track-being-replaced-on-the-racer-roller-coaster

[PKI Jizzman]

It really needed some work. I hope they do a lot of work on the Beast as well, my non-front-seat rides this year were giving me flashbacks to the Paramount days where it was trying to contend for most painful coaster in America. 

[DBru]

Great news! Racer was absolutely brutal this season. Now just turn one side backwards and it might be worth riding again! 

[grsupercity]

So Kings Island has an online Merch store, but so does Cedar Point, Holiday World, knoebels, Sea World parks, Universal, Disney ect. Its about to get real expensive if all these parks continue making these merch stores lol 

[KIEnthusiast]

They can do this but not Winterfest/Tastings of the Season? 

 

[AmyUD06]

Get over it man.  You've made your point and we get it; it's silly that this park did not do a Winterfest-lite.  Make the 8 hour drive to KD if you want to experience that, just like all of us with KD as our home park had to drive out to KI or CP this summer to get some use of our Platinum Passes.  Be happy KI had most of a mostly-normal season this year.  Or go bitch on the park's FB page; you'll find more like-minded individuals there.

[KIEnthusiast]

Did anybody ever ride the King Cobra? King's Island is selling King Cobra models, but I do not want to buy it if it was a bad ride lol.

https://www.visitkingsisland.com/blog/2020/december/king-cobra-nanocoaster-coaster-cutout-now-available-in-online-store

[WolfBobs]

I mean it was a Togo stand up.  So it was awfully awesome.  

I rode King Cobra and it's sister Shockwave at KD.  Neither ride was mind blowing but neither ride was absolutely awful either.  I have had much worse experiences on B&M stand-ups.  

[AmyUD06]

14 minutes ago, WolfBobs said:

I mean it was a Togo stand up.  So it was awfully awesome.  

I rode King Cobra and it's sister Shockwave at KD.  Neither ride was mind blowing but neither ride was absolutely awful either.  I have had much worse experiences on B&M stand-ups.  

I second the notion; I've been on both and miss them.  That "horizontal loop" pulled some serious Gs.  At KD, it was replaced by Delirium, a type of ride I don't ride, so that's a net loss to me.

Stand-ups aren't the best but they are a unique ride type that I'll be sad if they every all completely disappear.  I also never experienced any of the "male-derived pain" from these but I guess I just figured out early how to properly adjust the harness to prevent that.

[tndank]

Rode it the year it opened.  Couple years later, my brother and I would marathon that thing late in the day when the line was dead.  Those are some great memories from the park.