Hi Anna

I just hit the same thing, I attempted to login without the 'Character Data' showing and the queue showed '302' then after approx. 10mins it was down to '257' at that point I gave up.

I have been told by a Guildmate on Mumble, that it is due to a WoW YouTuber trying FFXIV and this in turn has caused a huge rush of WoW players to join FFXIV.

I am not sure if he was trying to wind me up with that, but there is definitely something up on the Server, it is not usually this bad outside of a new expansion