I was massively frustrated because I could not get onto Excaliber, where she who recruited me lived. Kuma has it on the money... after almost 2 weeks of frustration, an old guldie from the other MMO told me about maintenance. I had been told transferring worlds always got you in, BUT they explicitly say restrictions also apply to transfers. I researched it and saw that very frequently, they set servers live before the expected "time back." From 10 mins early to as much as an hour. Typically, the "time back" is 7AM EST, so I get up at 5:45AM and start looking at it. I caught it within 5 mins of the servers being up and saw ALL worlds wide open.

Gotta be on top of it, someone else told me the "wide open" period can be as short as 10 mins.