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They mentioned Stevenson (one of my favorite authors when I was a kid, not that his books are kid level, but they have young protagonists), because he came to live there, died there, is buried there. A lot of great writers ended up in the Pacific or wrote about it - Twain, London, Melville, Somerset Maugham (American Samoa). It's a natural that they would pull out Stevenson as a way to distinguish Samoa from other island groups. Maybe there will be a buried treasure twist/theme.

>>> didn't like the preview for Samoa... the warriors looked cheesy and fake.

Based on what? I live around Pacific Islanders, and I didn't thinks so. Samoa is one of the few island nations remaining where a fair amount of the people follow traditional ways. Tattoos were invented by these people, and full body tattoo art is not rare to see. You do NOT want to get in a fight with a Samoan; anyone in Hawai'i (where there are lots of Samoans) will tell you that. They have that "I'm a warrior and I'll beat the shit out of you if you cross me or even look at me funny" mentality. Mostly when they're drinking, otherwise gentle giants.

There's one island, Manono, where there are no cars allowed, where traditional practices rule. I kind of expect that would be the place for a village visit reward, if they do one.

Even though I'm excited to see Samoa, I wasn't wowed by this preview either. I'm going to repeat what I said before, that a preview shot prior to starting the filming really is at a disadvantage. They have no idea what kind of dynamics are going to be in play at this point. They don't have a Tribal Council set to film.

They send people out to collect beauty and wildlife shots, and to get some cultural shots, and mix it up. They try to drum up something that sounds exotic, scary, remote, different about this location. In this case they didn't have a whole lot of meat.

I would wait until they film it to begin judging it. The cast will define the season.

I was disappointed in the preview in that it didn't show any areas that specifically seemed like tribal camps or beaches, or give an idea where challenges will be held. It was just an overview of Samoa's greatest hits.
I like island seasons because I love seeing the beautiful turquoise water and I get sick of seeing dirty people squatting in brownish river water, so I expect I'll enjoy the visuals. Tocantins had fantastic aerial shots and wonderful animal shots, but there were no jaguars actually circling the players, and we didn't SEE a snake encounter as we did in Palau or Borneo. Camp was just boring, and camp shots make up most of the show footage that's not challenges. The challenge setting was totally ho hum too. So yay for seeing water again!

Yep. Their summer schedule is generally start shooting last week of June. Before they start they have a long process of hammering out land use agreements, either with a government or private land owners. In Samoa, I believe they'll be dealing with the tangled web of Pacific Islander land ownership, as in the Marquesas, Vanuatu, the Cooks (not sure about Fiji). Who exactly owns an island or a beach, maybe multible chiefs, multiple families, maybe with disputes and various claimants.

I was told that in the Cooks there were literally tens of owners of those motus, some with dubious claims, some who held up the agreements asking for more money. In the Marquesas they were sued by landowners.
So you can bet that they identified the sites they want to use some time ago and have been negotiating, and should have signed contracts by now. They should have already started building the TC set, or will do very soon. Nothing happens fast in the Pacific, and Samoa is notoriously laid back.

They will be putting areas off limits to the public soon if not already, so hopefully that info will trickle over the coconut grapevine.

I would hope that most of the contestants are firmed up, and not still holding down barstools, but I don't really follow the recruiting process like some others around here.