Yoshi P promised Dawntrail would be a vacation....

So far I have been doing nothing but jobs for others! This is not the vacation I was promised!

The 'vacation' thing was nonsensical to begin with. It is fundamentally incompatible with FFXIV's storytelling. I legitimately don't understand what the vacation fans expected.

There are games where it can work, but in XIV's 40 hour movie model, you'd be bored to tears after the first thirty minutes.

I miss my castle. Yeah, the servants might have wanted to eat me but it was my castle!

Also, I'm not far but i quickly felt the same issue as with last expansion. Namely the lack of the political undertone. Yeah we are at this new continent to stop a prince from becoming king and turning it into a dictatorship with a goal to capture the fractured Garlemald... But then nothing I've seen from this kingdom so far would indicate any kind of military capabilities that would even be sufficient for one of the remaining legions. And even then, by the time they land in Ilsabard those very Legions would most likely have already recovered and formed new nations and alliances, not as strong as the Empire but still strong enough to fend of hostile invaders.

Its like that sidequest trope where you roll up to the castle and they think you are the new janitor and put you to work before realising you are the saviour of the universe followed by the obligatory "oopsie, my bad". Except this time it is actually happening so I guess that's pretty meta of the writers.