They've temporarily lowered the maximum amount of characters allowed on a realm to help troubleshoot some latency issues and, as a result, the queues times have increased.

In attempts to pinpoint latency related issues we’ve temporarily lowered the maximum number of people allowed in each realm. This will result in higher queue times as realms who have populations above the cap will not allow any new players in until it decreases back down below the new player cap. We’re continuing work on this and other issues impacting game latency.


http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/15269366792