We have eaten at Tony's every single trip for lunch and always have requested to sit in the patio room and never had a problem. This past trip when we made our ADR for dinner there the CM told us we were not allowed to make special requests upon checking in (we hadn't even asked on the phone, we usually wait until we check in). I don't know if this is an all of the time thing (we ate there for lunch during the same trip and weren't told no special requests then) or if they have had too many people holding up tables at Tony's to watch Spectro.