A local couple will be reimbursed by Alaska Airlines after a diaper disaster in Las Vegas left them with a hefty airline bill.

Colleen Roberge and her fiancé recently travelled to Las Vegas to get married. The couple says they were set to board their return flight when a dirty diaper set them back.

Roberge says their baby son had an explosive dirty diaper experience moments before the family was supposed to board their plane.

Roberge told CTV News she left the lineup to change her baby while her husband stayed behind to explain the situation to the customer agent at the gate.

Roberge says she completed the task as quickly as possible but when she returned to the gate, she was told that her ticket had been given to somebody who was waiting on standby. Roberge says her husband was told he would still be able to board.

Roberge says she couldn't believe what she was hearing. She says that when she questioned the customer care agent about what she should have done, she was told she should have boarded the plane before changing the baby.

"So basically I should have just gone on the plane with the contents of his diaper seeping down his leg and she said, ‘yeah'", Roberge recalled.

The experience prompted Roberge to blog about what happened and her online journal has received hundreds of comments including a submission from Alaska Airlines.

"Reservations are subject to cancellation if customers aren't ready at the gate within specified times," the company reports. "If we accommodate people who arrive late, we risk arriving at the destination late."

Roberge said the only options they had were waiting up to two days on standby with no luggage or booking a flight home with another airline at a cost of more than a thousand dollars.

After CTV News began following the couple's dirty diaper troubles, Alaska Airlines contacted the newsroom to say the couple will be reimbursed for the cost of the WestJet flight. The airline is calling the situation a "rare case".

With files from CTV's Dez Melenka.