Introduction → Leg 1 → Leg 2 → Leg 3 → Leg 4 → Leg 5A → Leg 5B → Leg 6 → Leg 7 → Leg 8 → Leg 9 → Leg 10 → Leg 11 → Leg 12
Leg 19.12 – “I’m burning myself to win ‘The Amazing Race’!”
This is it! The best of the best will be decided on this Final Leg which will take teams to… Cebu!
All teams will be on the same flights from Osaka, via Manila, arriving in Cebu at 5:05am.
Upon arrival in Cebu, teams must take a taxi to the Simala Shrine in Sibonga. They must search the sprawling complex for their next clue. That clue directs teams to search the area around the shrine for an open field where they will find the Road Block: Who wants to get mixed up? As this is the 13th Road Block of the Race, either team member can opt to perform this task.
For this Road Block, with the help of a field of 200 flags flying nearby, teams must correctly identify the colors seen on each of the national flags of the countries they have visited on the Race. For each color, teams must correctly measure a portion of paint and mix them together for each country. Each mixture will result in a specific final color that must match the correct mix for each national flag. When they have all 11 new correct colors, they will receive the next clue.
Teams must now hop into a helicopter which will take them back to Cebu City, landing in the middle of the Cebu City Sports Center where their next clue awaits.
Teams must now make their way to the Crown Regency Hotel and Towers where they will find ANOTHER! Road Block: Who’s ready to take a leap of faith? The team member who did not perform the first Road Block MUST perform this one.
For this Road Block, that team member will be tethered to a rappel line and must walk out onto a beam from the rooftop of the towers. They will then jump off in order to grab both halves of a hanging clue. Once they have both halves, they will reunite with their partner. If they do not grab the clue, they’ll have to rappel down to the street and make their way back up to try again.
The next clue points teams to the Cebu Ocean Park.
Here, teams will trek underwater in the aquarium and search for hockey pucks which have country flags printed on them. Once they have collected the 11 pucks of the countries they’ve visited on the Race, they will receive the next clue.
And that clue tells teams to make their way on foot to the SM Seaside Ice Skating Rink.
Here, teams must now take turns dribbling each hockey puck between cones and shoot them into a goal in the order they visited the countries on the Race. Each team member will need to do at least five pucks each, taking turns. And any team member can score the 11th, Philippine flag puck to receive the next clue.
Teams can now make their way to Magellan’s Cross for the next clue.
And that clue directs teams to this open field for their Final Task. Cebu lechon is hailed by many as the best anywhere. For this Final Task, teams will relive their time on the Race by taking large, heavy pig replicas, skewering them with large bamboo poles and placing them in the correct order on spits over a large firepit. On each pig replica are a set of icons representing different tasks (Detours, Road Blocks, Duel Duels, Active Route Info) from each Leg of the Race. Each bamboo pole is marked with the locations from the Race. Teams must have three pigs representing each Leg of the Race and placed in order to receive the next clue.
After getting the thumbs up, both team members must firewalk over a lechon pit to receive their next, and final! clue.
And all that clue tells teams is: “The Race ends where it all began… sort of.”
The Starting Line was at Manila’s Statue of the Sentinel of Freedom, a sculpture honoring Lapu-Lapu. So teams must figure out that the Finish Line is at the Lapu-Lapu Shrine in Lapu-Lapu City.
The first team to arrive at this newly restored shrine will WIN all the prizes and the title of Amazing Race Philippines: DryedMangoez Edition All-Stars Champion!
YAHOO!WOO!
.
.
“Director’s” Commentary
A pretty flag-heavy, but full Final Leg! It worked out very well as I had the Lapu-Lapu Starting Line already in place before deciding on a Cebu Final Leg. So being able to take things full circle with the Lapu-Lapu Finish Line was great.
First off, I definitely wanted to do something at the Simala Shrine since it’s a perfect 8K UHD drone shot location. Having teams run around to start the Leg is alright. But this location ended up being perfect for this first Road Block as there are wide open fields around the perimeter of the shrine.
I came up with this Final Task somehow when I was trying to think of new ways to incorporate flags. So why not focus on the colors of the flags instead. Teams will still need to identify the actual flags. But the mixing of colors and doing it correctly could prove to be the hardest part of this task. I think. So it should be a nice memory task.
Since Simala Shrine is so far from Cebu City, a nice helicopter ride to add to the thrill of the Final Leg is good.
The Road Block at the Crown Regency was a last minute addition to this Leg. I wanted to add something different and more daring on the Final Leg. So I remembered the jumping and grabbing task from the TAR28 finale as well as the excellent Los Angeles Leg from TAR China 3. Not sure if we would be able to construct these beams here in the Philippines, but with TARPHDME, anything is possible! Hehe.
Next we have a visit to Cebu Ocean Park. Definitely a little bit of a recycle from a previous Manila Final Leg, but instead of flag pins, we have flag pucks here. And that connects to the next task at the ice skating rink.
This was originally a Road Block and then a Double Road Block. But it’s just a regular task here. I wanted to somehow incorporate the SM skating rink on a Final Leg and again it worked out well here. It’s a simple, straightforward task that requires some skill and patience for teams. We could add a time limit, but I don’t think we need that to keep this task interesting and exciting.
Finally, this Final Task should be the highlight. Not sure how gross it could be having teams skewering fake pigs onto huge bamboo poles. lol But I hope you can get the basic gist of what we’re going for here. Cebu lechon is well-known of course. So I wanted to incorporate that somehow into a Final Leg.
The challenge here will be to correctly spot the icons on each pig and then the physical task of having to carry the huge poles and pigs all over the place. It could be a frantic finish.
And the hot coals walking was just an extra, scary task to finish out the Leg with.
Finally, the mysterious clue to the Finish Line. We could hope it takes teams some time to figure it out, thus allowing teams to pass or fall behind. But it should be a straightforward clue for these All-Stars.
Overall, a very full and exciting Final Leg! And another season of TARPHDME done!