Meeting the parents on an 8 day cruise is not recommended

I had a feeling it was doomed from the beginning. I haven’t met the parents up until now. My partner and I have been together for a bit over 2 years now. I heard stories about his mom being called the little general. She seemed nice and willing to meet, and I don’t think she’s a bad person, per se. she just has expectations for things to go her way. She’s the type to argue with wait staff if they don’t have what she wants. His parents paid for this trip fully, because otherwise we couldn’t afford to be here after my cancer treatment. I’ve expressed my thanks thoroughly as I could verbally. But, I’m keeping my time limited with the family to dinner and the occasional event due to my limited social battery and I think I didn’t do a good job of explaining that to them. I don’t plan on coming on a cruise with them ever again.

We’re two vastly different people. I’m very introverted and I let my partner take the lead in deciding how we spent his time with his family. I didn’t have the backbone to reach out myself, but through him I asked them to go to dinner, see shows, and also take excursions together. They said no a lot due to either money constraints (shes… thrifty) or physical constraints (his dad has 70% use of his right side due to a stroke.)

But due to miscommunications and misalignments in expectations, she made it clear (through the door to my partner) that she doesn’t like the lack of effort from me. I don’t like my photos taken and I should suck it up anyway. I’m not making an effort to stay in the room with them (they have a tiny cabin room with 4 people already in it.) I could go on, but I knew it was doomed from the beginning. I am not good at taking the first step and I expressed this to my partner. I hate that my introversion keeps me from being the person to reach out personally, but it’s incredibly uncomfortable for me. Yet, somehow i find myself already standing up for some things when our opinions differ (like with the wait staff. I hate being rude to service workers. My mom worked it a lot and hammered home to always be nice to them). My partner has stood up for me and is supporting me fully. This is more of a rant than asking for advice.