makes sense to me!
I agree about Colton.

>>> obviously, because of the dates we can eliminate keeping them all together and then removing them prior to the jury arriving as an option.

I am not sure about this. According to TDT's calendar, there would be six boots by August 18th, Samoa time. The poster Travel flew to Fiji on August 19th, Samoa time. Basically he flew the day after the tribal council that rounded up the sixth and final pre-merge bootee.

As for the removal of the castaways, security wise it would have been easier to keep them on Upolu. Whether they were at the Ponderosa or at the fully booked by SEG Aggie Cray's resort, they had less exposure to the public than in Fiji.

We know from the Ponderosa clips last season that the jurors were allowed to go to Apia and shop, where they could have been seen by visitors, but were not reported. The same in Nicaragua. Apparently the producers are not nearly as careful as they used to be.

The fact remains that there are not too many Americans who go to Samoa, and there are far fewer New Zealanders and Aussies who follow Survivor religiously. About 1 in 15 visitors to Samoa are from the USA. However, there was one American who did notice ...

There would be more Americans in Fiji, as it is well served by direct flights from both the US mainland and Hawai'i, whereas Samoa is not.

I guess what I am getting at is that it makes sense to transfer the pre-jurors as a group. In earlier seasons where they left in small groups, they enjoyed things like vacations in remote places in groups of three, but my sense is that SEG has stingied up ...

As to why there were only five, I can think of two reasons.

1) One escaped his notice.

2) Someone was evacuated from the game earlier on.
If you get really sick in these island countries, the standard practice is to send people to New Zealand (or Australia), as the islands only have basic medical facilities.