 I had the opportunity to experience Orion, Kings Island's new for 2020 B&M gigacoaster at the park's opening day for pass holders on July 2nd, 2020. In this video today I will be reviewing several different aspects of the ride, including theming, operations, and of course analyzing the layout and ride experience. Before I begin, I do have to mention that unfortunately I was only able to get one ride, which was actually an assigned front row ride. I do like to get at least two or three rides on something in most cases before I do a review, but I feel like I got a pretty good feel for Orion for my one front row ride, and in all honesty, I would not be doing a review if I didn't feel completely comfortable doing so. With that disclaimer out of the way, let's talk about my experience. I had a reservation to get in the park at 12.30pm, so I went in, walked right back to Orion, and was greeted with an absolutely unreal line. Apparently at one point in the day, the line had been all the way back to Diamondback, but when I got in line, it went out of the Area 72 entrance, passed the antique autos and winseeker, and wrapped back past where Vortex's entrance would have been. Because of the procedures being implemented this year, which were followed very strictly by the way, props to Kings Island, I ended up waiting four hours for this. I got in line at 1pm, and got on the ride just a couple minutes past 5pm. When you're waiting in the queue, especially the further up towards the station you are, you will notice some pretty nice theming. In fact, the whole new Area 72, previously known as X-Base, has undergone a complete transformation with a refreshed flight of fear exterior, nice signage, some antennas and towers, an old car, some meteor rocks, and of course a wonderful soundtrack by ImaScore. There are also many signs and various other items around the queue, which pay tribute to current and former attractions at Kings Island and throughout the Cedar Fair chain. There are these ride signs in the station, metal buildings covering some of the queues which are called Outpost 7, Outpost 87, and Outpost 20, there's this large chemical container, which pays homage to Magnum XL 200, as well as various blueprints and posters in the pre-show building. Oh yes, you heard me right, Orion has a pre-show building. There are a couple TVs with this instructional video preparing you for your flight on Orion, and once you exit this building you are finally to the stairs leading up to the station where you can take flight on Orion. There are also many cool blueprint posters and other things in this building which encompasses the most elaborate theming of the ride. I will say this about the theming of Orion and the surrounding Area 72. I think Kings Island did a great job with it. They really threw in quite a bit around the queue, and I can't mention every single thing here, but it all looks nice and pays homage to many attractions. Just don't expect anything mind-blowing with the theming. It's nothing too immersive or anything like that, but for Cedar Fair it's very nice. I don't think it's as good as the theming for Copperhead Strike at Kerowins, but it's very good nonetheless. A lot of the other gigas, Millennium Forest, Leviathan, Fury 325, Intimidator 305 all have little or no theming, so this is definitely a step up compared to those. So once you see that cool pre-show building, you are headed up to the station. Because of the current situation and protocols being enforced, they were assigning seats for Orion and I'm sure will continue to do so as long as the ride gets long lines. Luckily, I was actually assigned to the very front row. I was pretty happy about this because I typically prefer back row, but on all the other gigas I had written, I always slightly preferred the front. You pull down those super comfortable open B&M clamshell restraints and away you go on your test vehicle. Orion's lift chain is very fast and you will get up to the top of that 287 foot tall hill in about 35 seconds. You have just enough time to take in some really nice views of the park, including Diamondback, which you feel like you're towering over, before plummeting down the huge 300 foot drop at an 85 degree angle. This drop is pretty much the same as Fury 325s, which is awesome. I got sustained, strong floater airtime going all the way down this drop, where you then hit some good positive Gs at the bottom and hit the top speed of 91 miles per hour before flying up into the 174 foot tall sideways hill, which is somewhat similar to a wave turn on an RMC. It feels quite different than that though, due to the way this is profiled. You get some decent laterals in a very quick pop of floater, at least in the front seat. Dropping back down, you'll go up into the second tallest part of the ride, a 202 foot tall turnaround. Many are calling this a reverse treble clef element, but again, this is really nothing like the treble clef element on Fury 325. You go up and sharply twist while going over the top, all the while twisting to the right as you are just whipped back towards the ground. This is really awesome because there is good force as you twist down and you are hauling as you hit this quick turn to the left, crossing under the entrance of the turnaround, before going into what is one of the highlights of the ride in my opinion, and that is the 56 foot tall speed hill. As you can see here, you are flying like crazy over this hill, as it delivers a huge moment of awesome sustained flowjector airtime in the front. I could imagine this providing some good ejector in the back. After the small hill, you then have a classic BNM camelback hill. This has trims on it, which did slow the ride down a bit as expected, but to me, this didn't affect the ride all too much. Despite the trim, I got an incredible pop of sustained airtime that started out as floater and got stronger as you crested over the top of that parabolic hill. Following this, you begin twisting upwards and to the right with this 125 foot tall helix, which once again, has been compared to another unique roller coaster element, but not really being like that element from what I can tell. Many people are comparing this helix to the ampersand on Shimbala, but to me, once again, it doesn't seem quite like it. In any case, this helix provides a decent amount of positives as you are ascending, and as you are twisting out of it, you will get this awesome headchopper as you fly under the first drop. You then twist up into this heavily banked turn, getting some good laterals and a small pop of airtime all at once. This actually is similar to the treble clef on Fury 325, but on a much smaller scale. You sharply twist out of it at a pretty good speed, providing that unique mix of forces, then take a small drop before you will rise back up and into the brakes. If you are sitting in the front, you'll get a really good pop of air going into the brakes here. This ends your 52 second drop to brake ride time on Orion. First things first, I really think many of us did Orion a little dirty. Leading up to its opening for almost a year, all I've heard for the most part is lots of grumbling from many enthusiasts across the board. I wasn't completely sure about Orion being a really good fit for Kings Island either, what I expected was a great fun ride with a really good drop but otherwise nothing too extraordinary. But this ride absolutely exceeded my expectations. This is a great creation by BNM that offers some good positive Gs, lots of great airtime moments, insane speed, and I think perhaps most importantly, absolutely incredible pacing from start to finish. I think BNM really did a spectacular job of creating something really great for Kings Island. As I said, the pacing is really good from start to finish as you fly into those brakes with a lot of speed left over. Leviathan at Canada's Wonderland, based on many POVs I've watched, doesn't have the same incredible pacing despite being about the same length and ride time as Orion, and generally having similar stats. Leviathan appears to really lose a lot of steam about halfway or so through its course, but Orion does not have this issue whatsoever. Being a brand new coaster, Orion is also completely smooth as well. One more thing which I hear a lot of people complaining about is the length. I think the ride time is perfectly fine in all honesty. It's not a really long ride and duration, but it's not short either. To me, this is one of those rides that feels like it is just at the right length and really feels complete as far as the duration goes. With all of that being said though, Orion is not a perfect ride. I hate saying this because I just got done praising it for its satisfying runtime, but I do still feel like Orion could have used just maybe one or two small elements at the end with all of that speed. I feel like I'm really nitpicking here because of how I feel about the ride, but think about this. I think if they would have had Orion finish the helix and go under the lift as it does right now, but then have it go over a couple small bunny hops like at the end of Fury 325, and then after that twist back around and do an outer bank maybe like on Candemonium, then drop down and go up into the final brakes as it does now. I think that could have been really cool and more unique. It certainly seems like there is enough momentum to do something like that. Even though I enjoyed it, it kind of seems like after the camelback, they just threw a couple sort of filler elements together to lead the train back to the brake run. Again, I really do feel like I am being nitpicky here. Fury 325 has a huge helix near the end, but it loses a lot of energy right there and just kind of meanders, which Orion does not suffer from. These filler elements at the end of Orion, the helix and many treble cleft turn, are taken with a good pace which makes them pretty enjoyable, whereas Fury's huge helix was a dull moment of the ride because of how wide it is. Orion is kind of similar to Intimidator 305 at Kings Dominion in the fact that it's pretty short for a giga, but it packs a punch from start to finish, although I 305 and Orion are much different rides. Taking all of that into consideration, here's how I felt about the newest giga coaster at Kings Island. Compared to the other three giga coasters I've ridden, being the other three in the United States, Orion is in the lower half for me. I definitely have it behind Fury 325 and Intimidator 305, but honestly, I think I like Orion a little better than the original giga Millennium Force. I had no idea going in if I'd like it more than Millennium or not, but I love Millennium and since Orion is maybe just a bit better in my opinion, Orion is truly a great ride and it does stand on its own very well at Kings Island, even with Diamondback which offers quite a bit of a different ride experience. Definitely get out to Kings Island and ride this for yourself to see how you feel about Orion, but I think this is absolutely going to be a huge success for the park and I believe most people who go there to ride this will be very pleased. Definitely keep your expectations in check, but also be open to it. As I always do, I will give Orion a personal score out of 10. Orion gets, as of currently, a 9.5 out of 10 for me. I think had just a bit more attention been put into the last part of this ride and they had gotten a bit more creative with the layout there, this could have possibly felt much more like an elite coaster, but as it stands, it's still honestly probably one of the best coasters out there. This is one you don't want to miss, especially if you are anywhere near Mason, Ohio. If you have been able to ride Orion, be sure to let me know how you felt about the ride experience. What would you change about the ride if anything? I hope this review was helpful. Be sure to like my page CoasterDaddy on Facebook and follow me at CoasterDaddyOfficial on Instagram. Thanks so much for watching. This is CoasterDaddy. Bye.