I took the ship to Borean Tundra. The closest yellow ! to where the ship docks is the flightmaster, who gives you a quest to go to the main city of the expansion. The quest ends at the innkeeper, making it seem like you’re really supposed to set your hearthstone there. However, there’s no follow-up quest, and as best I can tell, the only other quests available in the city (before you do quests elsewhere) are for the Brewfest event. The innkeeper mentioned a nearby portal to Stormwind, so I used it and took the ship back to Borean Tundra, because the cost of flying back there from the hub city was prohibitive for the character I was using.
This time, I checked out the 2nd-closest yellow ! to where the ship docks. This NPC also wanted me to go to that hub city and offered to teleport me there. I figured that, this time, surely there will be a follow-up quest. The two closest !'s to the dock? I’m definitely supposed to start at that city. Well, it was just a very short quest showing me how to teleport from the middle of the city to the city’s entrance and back. It feels like someone is trying to mess with my head.
In other Northrend starting areas, those quests probably exist, but maybe they aren’t the two closest ones to where the ship, blimp, or whatever drops you off.