We don't know if they are going to Fiji or not. If they are going to Fiji, the only ones that would know are the TAR production people, the people in Fiji that are working with TAR to arrange it and the people hired in Fiji to work on the tasks. Somebody might have talked and let the secret out, but usually it doesn't happen.

Ask your friend how he knows and you'll have an idea about how reliable the information is.

I'd discount the possibility based on Miami, then. It would make little sense for teams to fly from LAX to Miami to get to Fiji; there are more direct flights and connections than using Miami in that situation.

Would Phil filming in Buenos Aires on 30 Nov fit into this schedule? Perhaps doing an after-the-fact stand-up? Something to start off Leg Three before teams leave for Paraguay? The alternative option where Leg 2 takes place on 30 Nov puts a "short leg" between Buenos Aires and Asuncion, which hasn't been the modus operandi for travel between two different countries outside of Europe in a normal timetable:

That's a useful summary, thanks Neobie. I'm more inclined to believe the first one, for the reasons you've specified. The shorter Pit Stop is much more likely to be the one within the same country, and probably doesn't include air travel. Flying the day after a Pit Stop would require Phil to likely be either only hours ahead or on the same flights as the teams.

We have Phil doing a stand-up in Buenos Aires on 30 Nov, but teams racing in Asuncion the next day, 1 Dec. We also have teams presumably arriving in Europe on the morning of 3 Dec, but racing in Turin the next day, 4 Dec.

Usually there's a day of "rest" in between legs of such distances apart, but apparently there isn't for these two pairs of legs. This season has been running on a compact schedule, I think we're going to have to abandon the assumptions that have worked pretty well for us thus far. Are they trying to rush filming before Christmas, or is this going to be a permanent change?

« Last Edit: December 09, 2011, 10:35:47 PM by Neobie »

Logged

Found out that Neobie in Chinese means "f*king awesome"! No, really. Look it up!

The other possibility to me is that they've got a country off the beaten path on the route this time that is going to burn a couple of days because of the flight schedules. This would be like what we've seen with the Seychelles in TAR 16, Malawi for TAR 19, Burka Faso, so what candidates are there for such a leg or two? This is where Nepal might be possible, or Israel (where the flights almost have to connect through Europe, or some other countries in Afria, and your guess is as good as mine since northern Africa (except possibly for Morocco is still not safe yet) and there are a lot of African nations the show hasn't gotten to.

And I agree that while production's flight gives hints, we cannot assume that the teams travel the same path; in fact, I'm sure production is trying to get and stay ahead of the Racers as much as possible. I think we need to think of rest periods being whatever production needs to move itself ahead of the Racers, and the Racer may not get 26 hours of rest except during transportation.

What you are saying about a hidden leg is plausible except for this reason:

Teams reportedly flew from GRU (Sao Paulo) to Germany (either FRA or MUC). You would not double back to northern Africa or Cape Verde Islands or the Azores to get to Torino from Frankfurt or Munich. There wasn't time to do so with our official TIMELINE (at the beginning of this thread) showing Dec. 2-3 in Asuncion and Dec. 4 in Torino.

apskip, I am not saying there's already been a hidden leg; I am saying that if the actual timeline this time turns out to be compressed compared to average, it may indicate that a later leg may be planned for a destination that is off the beaten path. I do not take as established that there have been legs definitely anywhere except Paraguay and Italy. There may be legs in Argentina and Germany, but I don't think we can say either has been firmly established. Possible, but not established.

Dom, don't you think Torino must be directly after Paraguay because of the dates? Dec. 3 in one and Dec. 4 in the other. Then we must have missed at least three legs between there and the possible Nepal.