Everyone has at least one travel 'horror' story. Share your worst experience(s) with us.

I sure do have one of these.

In June of this year we went to Hawaii with Alethea, who was 6 months old at the time, to visit my dad. The trip there was perfect. We only paid for 2 seats but the plane wasn't full. We picked seats in the center aisle but my husband and I had both aisle seats in hopes that the center seat wouldn't be taken or, if it was, that the person wouldn't mind moving so we could have the row to ourselves. It worked. The person who had the center seat was moved to a row by herself (a window seat). Everything was great. When Alethea fell asleep we placed her in the seat between us. She didn't fuss at all. It was great. We had an early flight (8am), but it worked perfectly for her schedule.

The return trip wasn't so great. In fact, it was horrible!!! I had picked a flight that would get us home a little bit before her bedtime. It would have worked, too, except for that our flight was delayed 3 hours! And we didn't find out until we had reached our gate. How annoying! I checked in online and no mention of a delay, even though they knew it was delayed many hours before that.

Well, our seats were right next to the engine so, not only was it loud, it was very warm, too! None of us could get comfortable. It was a full flight and we had a 2 seater by the window. Horrible. Alethea couldn't get comfortable enough to stay sleeping. She was so warm. I had her in only her diaper for the entire flight! She was fussy and whiny and everything! Totally what I wanted to avoid. I didn't feel sorry for the other passengers, though. We all paid for our seats and I couldn't help how my daughter felt. I felt the same way! It sounds horrible but, I didn't care! We were all miserable! 6 hours is a long time when you have an uncomfortable 6 month old who can't get to sleep and it's past her bedtime. We didn't pull into Seattle until 1am. Alethea had just fallen asleep and I had just put her clothes on so I wouldn't wake her. I carried her out of the plane and, even though we had our stroller, I carried her all the way to baggage claim so nothing would wake her. My husband and I were exhausted. But he got to sleep a bit. I didn't. I was concerned over keeping my daughter cool and as comfortable as possible. But then again, I haven't been able to sleep on planes for quite some time.

When we got to baggage, my mom was there to pick us up (she had our car). Alethea chose that time to wake up. She was so happy to see her Mime. She was comfortable and she was happy. I dropped her off with my mom and went with my husband to help locate our baggage (he didn't really know which ones were ours). When we got home, Alethea was so pumped up from the excitement at baggage that she was up for another hour plus! All I wanted to do when we got home was sleep, but I couldn't until Alethea went to sleep.

If we had just had an ontime flight, none of that horrible flight would have happened! It is forever etched in my mind! One thing's for sure, I'll be making sure Alethea has her own seat AWAY from the engine from now on and I'll be CALLING to find out about any delays beforehand, that's for sure.