Orientation Information

Our Hotel
Freehand NYC

Located in Manhattan’s Flatiron District, Freehand New York is housed in the former George Washington Hotel—once home to many storied writers, musicians and creatives. Designed by Roman and Williams and featuring custom-commissioned artwork by Bard College students and alumni throughout, we’re revitalizing the artistic community in a historic NY neighborhood.

Hotel Address:
23 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10010

Flights

Arrivals- Should arrive between 12:00 and 20:00
Students who arrive outside of these hours require additional accommodations and staff. Flights booked outside of these hours without prior approval will need to be re-booked at the agent/student expense.

Departures- Should depart between 06:00 and 12:00
(Hotel check out is 11am- all students, regardless of their departure time will be transported to the airport at this time).

Students should bring no more 1 checked bag, 1 carry on and 1 personal item.

We will accept arrivals and departures through JFK and LGA only. Flights booked to EWR without prior approval will need to be re-booked at the agent/student expense. EWR is much farther from the hotel location and transportation cost is significantly more than our selected airports.

Partner Chaperones

Partner chaperones are not required. However, if you wish to send a chaperone to accompany your student group they must meet the following requirements:

Age 25 and older
Physically able to chaperone 7-10 students
Physically able to walk 8-10 miles per day in NYC summer heat.
Be familiar with PAF rules and orientation rules
Complete the NYC orientation staff training.
Available to assist with departures as early as 3am and up until 3pm on the day of student departure.
Fluent English speaker

Chaperones not able to meet all of the requirements are not able to be considered a PAF orientation chaperone and while they are welcome to join the group if they wish, they will need to do so at their own cost.

If you are sending a chaperone with your student group PAF must be notified no later than May 1st , 2024. Please have the chaperone's name and contact information sent to PAF by June 1st , 2024.

Q&A

Will students be assigned to an orientation?

Students will be assigned an orientation once they are placed. We are not pre-assigning students to an orientation this year. However, we can assign groups of students to each orientation so that you may do group flights, and later in the season we will assign certain students to orientations as each orientation reaches capacity.

Last minute placements and finding flights.

If a student is not able to attend orientation, no fault of their own, we will not charge for the orientation fee. If a student is placed 10 days prior to the assigned orientation, they are expected to attend that orientation. No refund will be given if students are unable to attend orientation for which they are appropriately placed. If a student is placed less than 10 days prior to the assigned orientation and are unable to secure a flight, they will be given the option to move to a later orientation. If a later orientation is not available, they will be refunded. Confirmation of no earlier flight is required. Placement denial does not constitute a refund unless the denial is based on rejection of Single Person Placement, Double Placement, or tuition fees.

If a student arrives late to orientation due to flight delay.

If the student arrives late, we are not able to refund any part of the orientation. Most orientation cost are no longer flexible after the June 1st cutoff date. Most students who arrive late do miss the orientation meeting but join right in as soon as they can to the rest of the tour.

If a student test positive for Covid while at orientation.

We are only testing student who present with high temperature and symptoms. If a student tests positive, they will quarantine until they have a negative test before going to their host family. The additional days in quarantine would need to be the student’s personal expense. However, PAF staff will be on site and will help facilitate the additional arrangements.

DoS deadline or cancelations

If a student does not come on program due non-placement prior to 8/31, the orientation fee will be refunded. If a student elects to cancel their program after June 1, orientation will be considered a fee that has already been incurred and is therefore non-refundable.

Deadline to change orientation allocation

If you are not using all of your allocation- the last day to cancel the additional spots is June 1, 2024. Spots not canceled or allocated will be charged the $900 orientation fee per spot.

Flights

Group International flights may arrive to JFK, EWR, or LGA. Individual flights should arrive to JFK and LGA only. Domestic departures may depart from JFK or LGA. Pan Atlantic Foundation will not be able to accommodate departure flights from EWR as the number of staff required to accompany 60 students to 3 different airports is prohibitively expensive.

UM Service

No student attending NYC orientation may have unaccompanied minor (UM) status. All students with UM status must fly direct to their host family. There can be no exceptions to this rule, and a flight booked to orientation with UM status will result in flight change as well as be considered a late orientation cancellation.

Cut off date and refunds

The cut off date for orientation is April 15th. If a student chooses orientation- they cannot change their mind after April 15 and receive a refund for the orientation. April 15th is when we officially lock in our contract with the hotel on our room blocks so we do need the student decision by then.

However, if a student cancels their entire program before June 1st we will allow them to get a refund for the orientation as we can drop a few students each week without retribution. We have this small allowance for cancelations and visa issues. We do not have the flexibility to offer this later date as a cut off for students committed to coming on program due to the contract limiting how many we can drop each week. After June 1st we are not able to issue refunds for cancelations.