I'd do what others are saying and try creating a character during the morning hours in EST. Also, I believe transferring a character in from another server is a bit easier, but keep in mind that if you were to decide to go that route it will cost around $20 for the transfer. I had a friend a few months ago wait till the wee hours to create on Excalibur though and it worked for her.

I don't know what time zone you're in though, so I'll just say that the farther it is from NA prime play time, the more chance you have of successfully creating a character, so it may require logging in and creating at an odd time of day. Also the expansion is still pretty new so there may actually be higher than average congestion for a while.