Managed to snag reservations and go with the family to opening day; here's my report.
-Entry processes have changed; you fill out a paperwork with your information for COVID contract tracing purposes; they give this to you at the tollbooth and you fill it out at your vehicle and hand it in at the ticket booth.
-Security is far more efficient now; you walk through a camera which can see inside any bags being brought in, and security can selectively choose who to search based on what the camera shows. Most people now just pass right through. Temperature checks are done as well. Masks are required but a lot of people had them on improperly and not much seemed to be done to enforce the rules.
As for the day itself: the park was pretty crowded for opening day; mostly locals, people were pretty excited to get to the park for the first time in 18 months. Six Flags seems to be desperate to get people to the park... season passes are being sold for just $49.99, and the all season drink sports bottles are being sold for just $28 (they were nearly $60 in 2019). Granted they say "2020" on them; clearly last year's stock they never got to use that they're trying to get rid of!
While the entry procedures and COVID protocols seemed to run pretty smoothly, staffing and most ride ops were anything but. You could tell it was the first day on the job for many people, some probably having literally just been hired with in the past week... one of the guys running the pizza stand, for example, was particularly incompetent and didn't understand the concept of how the meal plan works. Finally had to get the manager over to take care of it. With one exception which I'll get to, the ride ops were generally pretty slow... sending trains and rides half full really slowed down the lines, especially on rides which were capacity nightmares to begin with. We waited over an hour to get on the Storytown Train, a combination of only filling every other car and the pitifully slow operator... and having to stop and sanitize the entire train in between cycles. At one point the train sat still while full of people, almost as if it was waiting for something... more than likely it was because Flashback broke down and needed to have the line mass exit (more on this soon).
My sister and niece were literally about to get on Flashback when the ride broke down. It looks like the cable lift that pulls the train backwards up the first lift hill broke at first, but it was some pin loose or something. They had to exit the entire line as soon as they closed the ride; it was down for about an hour or so.
Ghost Town is a mess. The only portion accessible is the pathway between the bumper cars and Canyon Blaster... everything else is tarped off. Construction is underway for Adirondack Outlaw and the new entrance for Steamin' Demon, which is down until Outlaw opens. Condor was still standing, but its cars have been removed and were laying on the ground... it looks like some work may have been done to them. Canyon Blaster was the usual one train ops, but the ladies operating the ride were by far the single most competent and fastest pair going in the entire park... they were enthusiastic, and cycling those trains efficiently so the line moved extremely quickly. I didn't time them but I'd guess the dispatches were around a minute or less.
All in all, not a bad day at the park.