You are correct.....you cannot view your ressie unless it was booked directly with
DCL (though I thought I have read here that some who booked with DU were able to view their ressie at the DCL site...so I should never say never...)
We booked directly with DCL for the August repo and I was able to view online at DCL's site....as soon as I switched it over to Costco I could no longer view my ressie at the DCL site...even though I had the DCL confirmation number.
Other times when we kept our ressie with DCL we were able to view it at the DCL site up until 2 weeks prior to sailing...then DCL takes it out of the online system and you can no longer view it. I guess that is when they make final inventory decisions.
To answer the OP original question.....you can view your ressie online within the hour after booking with DCL. You do not have to be paid in full. Also note that if you view your ressie online and then want to contact DCL to discuss something about it, you must wait 30 minutes until after you sign off of the DCL website until you can contact DCL via phone and have them pull up your ressie....sooner than that and they can't pull it up after you have viewed it online. Just one of those computer annoyances....
A few times we have noticed after we made any change to our ressie via phone, that when we looked online, the changes were not made and the changes never showed up on the online ressie, even though the changes were in fact made.