Update:
I tried online at 5 am (6 am eastern) and I could only book 11/17. On My Disney Experience it looked like the 17th and 18th were highlighted and let me choose the 18th to search but it kept telling me search unavailable on the 18th. I waited until 6 am (7 am eastern) and called. Got a CM who was okay and she told me that she could book the 17th and 18th for me but I would have to call Disney Vacation Club number to make reservations for the remaining part of my vacation but they did not open for another hour. So I went ahead and made lunch reservation for the 18th and waited. I did call the DVC numbers that she gave me before the open time and the recordings said nothing about making dining reservations which seemed a little strange to me. Said things about paying dues, buying DVC, checking point balance, making hotel reservations. So I called back the Disney Dining line back about 730 am(830 eastern). I got a wonderful, helpful CM who said I could book the whole week no problem. I was able to get everything I wanted with a few adjustments:
Sci-Fi Diner (lunch)
Coral Reef (lunch)
Raglan Road (lunch)
Chef Mickey's(breakfast)
Tusker House (breakfast)
Ohana (dinner)
Be Our Guest (dinner)
CRT (breakfast)
Super excited! So glad I called back-the second CM was so happy to help me!
I've had similar experiences. My experience with the old dining site was that 180+10 was not an issue with linked reservations. With DVC, linked reservations mean that the same party is staying the same room type for adjoining dates with different reservation numbers (for example, the 1st through the 4th with 1 reservation and the 4 through the 8th with the second reservation). With the old dining site prior to the December 2012 rollout of
MDE, I could make ADRs for an entire trip in the 180+10 period if reservations were linked.
With the MDE site, the entire trip will be highlighted if your reservations are linked, but you can only reserve 180+10 for each reservation separately online. In other words, you can reserve 180+10 from your first check-in day, 180+10 from your second check-in day, etc. The other problem I've had with the MDE site is that if I am checking out / checking in less than 10 days from the first check-in day, the MDE site will not let me make ADRs beyond the first check-out day, even if it is less than +10 from the check-in day and even if the reservations are linked.
The advice about calling DVC Member Services to make ADRs is bad advice if you're not a DVC member, i.e., the first thing they'll ask for is your membership number. It has been a long time since DVC Member services would speak with renters.
My latest ADR experience was similar to yours. The site would not let me book the second part of a trip with a linked reservation. Since I'm a DVC member, I called member services and that rep told me that I needed to book each ADR at 180 days for the second part of my trip exactly on 180. In separate calls, I had 2 Disney Dining reps basically tell me the same thing. By the 3rd call, I was tired of calling back so I basically talked the rep into trying to make the ADRs for the 2nd part of my trip with the linked reservation. The rep didn't think it would work, but, as I suspected, it did.
I think the moral to the story is that if you're at 180+10 and have website issues with linked reservations, call Disney Dining. If the rep isn't helpful, either call back or talk them into checking for you if you're the persistent type. You should be able to make 180+10 ADRs with linked reservations by calling.
Note that I don't know whether this is just an issue with DVC reservations or reservations at all resorts. Also note that the phone and tablet apps had even more issues with 180+10, i.e., those apps only wanted to let me make ADRs 179 days out.
We'll see what making FP+ selections at 60 days will be like with linked reservations. My expectation is that we'll have the same issue, i.e., the system won't recognize the linked reservations for purposes of making FP+ selections.
