Are you both logging in ok now? I was playing ok on PC EU an hour ago, and having just read this topic tried to log back in and did so without any issue (logged in to character screen and then to Shadowfen).
If you're both still having problems then it might be worth stating where you're playing from and through which ISP, as well as whether you're failing to reach the character screen and if not then which zone you're failing to log into.