Does Amazon AWS EC2 Spot Instance in US-East 1-B take forever to spawn?

I have found the culprit. When you specify the availability zone especially 1-b it is taking an inordinate amount of time (this may be needed for bandwidth and data transfer savings reasons). But if you are in an emergency where cost is not as much of an issue, then leaving the availability zone with No Preference will spawn an instance in US-East within 4-5 minutes (either from a community ami or your own custom ami). I have tested and confirmed this.

Uh, you're using spot instances. If you want to get an instance quickly, either increase the max price you're willing to pay or use a normal instance.

I've noticed they take longer than regular instances but 45min is a bit extreme. Mine seemed to average at around 2-3min last week.