A comment regarding the course structure for this season as it relates to the number of episodes and the number of legs for the fall season broadcasts. I hadn't realized that the Emmys were going to be aired on Sunday September 18th (FOX has them this year). That means the earliest TAR 19 would very likely premiere is September 25th. An 11 episode season with out breaks would take it to December 4th; if there is a skipped week for country music awards as there was last fall, IIRC, then that would point to December 11th, and a 12-episode run would point to December 11th. Unless, there is a two hour episode lurking in the schedule somewhere. The question is whether CBS is planning Chrismastime programming on December 18th. If so, then Survivor has to have December 11th for its finale, and TAR 18 would have to finish on December 4th. You see where I'm headed with this? That may mean this this time around, they had to structure the race course for either 11 legs and episodes to finish on December 4th, or there's going to be a two-hour, two-leg finale (for a 12 leg race) as TAR:UB was.
Just throwing that speculation out there because it does become relevant for live sightings later on in the filming. It may also explain why there was a double elimination this season.