This King’s Island Pride Night we made a beeline for Orion, the world’s seventh giga coaster as soon as we arrived. What’s that you say? It’s a roller coaster with a height/drop of 300 feet. Orion has that and goes 91 mph (146 km/h) on that first hill. (Wikipedia)
I was hesitant to even ride… During my last Pride Night (6 years ago) I started having less than stellar experiences with coasters. But I wanted to try.
Once strapped in I made note of my blood pressure (quite elevated), felt clammy and wondered if I made the right choice.
Orion turned out to be very smooth and fast and whoa. It was less about plastering you into the seat and more about lifting your butt off it.
I survived, gripping the bar with white knuckles while all the tendons in my neck were about to pop out. (As evidenced by photos below)
The beauty of Pride Night is you can hop on most any ride without much of a wait. So as soon as we finished with our first ride we met up with friends at the exit and did Orion again, immediately.
This time I was less deathly. By my third time when we closed out the evening, I was able to have my hands up the whole way.
Pride Night had a great crowd and I got to see (and hug) many folks I hadn’t seen for years — and met new friends along the way. Man, I missed all this. It was lovely to experience again.
Note: I was not comfortable with the tightness of the lap bar on The Beast and decided to skip out on the classic coaster. In hindsight, I feel really good about this decision.
