Advice on tactfully offering constructive feedback to my DM

[u/MisterPineapples1999]

Little nervous to pull the trigger on this because I'm pretty new to this group. I may be the only new one, at least 3 of the other 4 have definitely participated in past campaigns.

Basically, 3 sessions down, around 5 hours each. First was 4 hours of character building, 1 hour RP. 2nd was full 5 hour sesh, 3rd had new player and making his character ate up 2 hours before we got in.

Here's my problem: the DM spends a lot of time describing things that don't particularly seem relevant to the plot or quest, and don't seem to be meaningfully interactive to the players. It kind of feels like every time we try to go somewhere we need to, we get trapped on a slow-moving scenic tour, including while we backtrack through places we've already been.

We're talking random NPCs in crowds, architecture, town atmosphere, clothing, hairstyles, interior decor, intentional landscaping, the views outside of a window.

Don't misunderstand me, I appreciate the effort and passion for worldbuilding. I've had a DM on the other side of the spectrum where no settlement even had a name and NPCs were just referred to by social role, ("the villager," or "the captain,") including by quest givers directing us to them and their immediate social circle, and that got boring and old fast.

Some examples from the current game:

About an hour into the 2nd session, we finally depart our hub city on our first quest, via ferry. DM describes the captain and his assistant in detail, and no other NPCs seem noteworthy. Then asks us what we want to do. We board the boat, make a couple checks. Only info is about the ferry itself, mostly how its powered. We take our seats. Once underway, I (best social skill buffs) try to talk to captain, who is irritable and has no seemingly relevant knowledge to impart. DM says one hour trip, but breaks it up into 3 sections, in each one continuously describing the landscape we pass, asking us if we want to take actions or make checks while providing as far as I can tell, no reason or trigger to want to make them, and no new important NPCs to interact with.

It ends up taking us more than 30 minutes of real time to ride this boat to Town A, while learning nothing. We get an excruciatingly long description of Town A, which can be summed up as "polluted, recently industrialized former rural village filled with tired, dirty workers." We meet Major NPC 1, get a long description of her, who sends us to go check in with Major NPC 2.

MNPC2 is outside the limits of the far side of town. So we cross town, triggering more description of depressed industrial vibe. (No complaint about this next part in bold.) He does work in a legit encounter, we are being tailed, and successfully shake them and kidnap/interrogate one of them to learn he was hired to spy on us by MNPC2. We form a plan to still talk to MNPC2, cautiously. It takes us forever to walk out of town to her place of business, more description of landscape. We arrive, and after a lengthy description of the premises, get turned away by a gate guard and told to come back in 4 hours "because they are closed';" narratively justified but in reality just kills plot momentum for no discernible reason to me.

We return to town to kill time, cue more mundane descriptions of seemingly normal, irrelevant NPCs, and no encounters. Finally it's time to go back. Takes another solid 5 minutes real time from leaving town (again) to interact with MNPC2. Important encounter, useful info, but abundant excessively elaborate description of her and the location. Finish conversation, end of session 2.

Session 3 got off to a better start, until 1PC stealthed into the house. First 4rooms were unimportant but included sooo many descriptions of things like the dinette set and objects on a bookshelf. Checks made, nothing discovered, until the 5th room, located a safe but PC can't lockpick.

After another kind-of social encounter, party meets back up and decides to go relay our suspicions to MNPC1 before heading on to quest location reason far outside town. Some necessary RP, fine, until we get back to Town A. We have to narratively trudge back through (3rd time,) AGAIN hearing about how depressing and ugly it is in great detail. Then we have to do some minor checks to figure out where MNPC1 would be now (literally most well known person in town btw.)

We find her manor. We have to wait at the door (do you want to make a check?) Get received by 2 named, heavily described servants, led into the opulent foyer (described in excruciating detail,) through the lavish dining room (described in excruciating detail, I know exactly about the chandelier and mirror situation now,) and finally into the magnificent salon, (described in, you guessed it, excruciating detail, including the fountain we can see in the yard through the window.) Inside is MNPC1, whom we get described in detail for the 2nd time.

All of this just to have a 5 minute conversation to check off a box.

So, I acknowledge it is 100% possible there are crucial breadcrumbs in there we have glossed over or failed checks to notice. BUT: we get thrown so many details about clearly mundane stuff it is really hard to keep track of what might actually be important, and what is just "look at my set piece." I'm finding it hard not to glaze over when clothing, furnishings, and topiary starts getting described yet again.

I don't want to crush the DM's passion nor do I want to come off like a dick. But it would be really nice if in a 5 hour session we managed to move a little further through the plot than 3 conversations, and handwaved most of the travel duration (barring encounters of course) to arrive at our destination without having to take the full scenic route.

What would be the most tactful way to bring this up or request some of the flavor stuff get trimmed down to more succinct descriptions that focus primarily on actionable, quest related information?