Road Block. Late 20s

[JackDaniels]

The bf and I are really enjoying the game whenever we do get a chance to play (which isn't often). Unfortunately for us we have hit a slump, the closer we get to level 30 from level 25, the slower our rate of exp gets.

He prefers not to party as the level of l33t on my server is pretty intense, and he is an MMO noob, but whenever I do convince him to party, it usually ends up being a snore fest. We grinded ants in Nophica for about 45 mins before we called it quits because it was just soooo boring, plus our rate of exp from spamming battle leves with full aspect was pretty much the same, and a little less mind numbing.

We decided to try to get our chocobos, only to discover that
a) we were 750 seals short after completing GC quests (really SE? like.. come on lol), and caravans are just way too hard to do on our own.
b) GC leves are rediculously difficult at level 28, it's unfortunate we can't share/link these.. the rewards are pretty pathetic too, 40-80 seals per leve.. at that rate (at the bare minimum level to pass them) it would take us a few days (4 hours a day roughly) just to be able to get our damn birds.

Soo we moved back on to leveling.. and we just haven't had any motivation to play because of the last couple days wasted on trying to get our birds.

Are we the only ones stuck at this level range and having issues even trying to motivate ourselves to play? Any suggestions on how to make a grind party that doesn't put us to sleep? This game has seen vast improvements, but I fear that the no-lifers of the community who are crying for content (which SE can't deliver, so they feed us rediculous time-sinks) are ruining the game for people like us who can't afford to invest 80 hours a week into this game.

EDIT:
Just to clarify, we are in the Storm GC, our server is pretty sparcely populated, and I think LL GC is the least common GC, so shouting/ starting parties for caravan is pretty much out of the question. I like a little bit of a challenge but it's silly that SE is making simple things like getting a chocobo nearly impossible for new players.