There are fewer nicer places in Disneyland to sit, pretzel bread bratwurst in hand, than the tables by Edelweiss Snacks. The long, narrow seating area juts into the lagoon across from the Matterhorn, ensuring the view includes a steady stream of ducks and their fluffy babies floating by. It’s covered by a roof, giving a reprieve from the hot summer sun. And set apart from the busy sidewalks of Fantasyland, it’s quiet. Most days, the only disturbance in the area comes from a resident heron with a taste for chicken tenders.

If you’ve ever enjoyed that oasis in the chaos of Disneyland, perhaps you’ve wondered why a concrete slab was built into a lagoon to begin with. There’s no other purpose for it today, just a landscaped area that the monorail passes over every 10 minutes or so. But if it’s struck you that the spot looks like a pier, that’s because it once was.

The dock is the last remnant of one of Disneyland’s oldest rides. When the park opened in 1955, it was heavy on transit-based rides, with boats, tiny cars and trains making up many of the attractions. Tomorrowland debuted with the Phantom Boats, a truly terrible idea from the jump. The boats were driven by guests, not fenced in by a track. Unruly children and adults, no doubt kept causing problems. Some went too fast, others crashed into fellow guests and caused traffic jams, and the boats overheated and broke down constantly. Because people demonstrated they could not be trusted to use their free will responsibly, a Disneyland employee was assigned to sit in each boat to monitor the driver. It was hardly a free-wheeling adventure of the future, and it was using way too much staff for a midtier experience.

A year after opening, the Phantom Boats closed, making it one of the least successful attractions in Disney’s history. But the park still had a large lagoon, and there was no point in leaving the space empty. In 1957, Disneyland debuted the Motor Boat Cruise, a much more restrained version of the Phantom Boats. This time, Imagineers wisely added a track under the water so teens couldn’t attempt to rip wheelies, and the steering wheel on the dashboard was purely decorative.

Giving parents a place to disassociate for a few minutes while their kids pretended to be very slow-moving pirates wasn’t much of a sales pitch though. So when the ride opened, Disneyland ran ads in local papers that promised a more exhilarating experience. “All the thrills and excitement of driving your own speedboat,” one read. After the addition of rocks and a gentle current in one section, Disney advertised the ability to “pilot your own craft through swift moving, whitewater rapids.” The attraction did none of these things, as the boats drifted firmly along a track like the barges in Pirates of the Caribbean.

The seating area today used to be the Motor Boat Cruise’s loading dock. Guests would load into boats on one side and unload on the other. In honor of that legacy, there are life preservers decorating the pillars.

The Motor Boat Cruise was hardly a must-do for most guests, but it did serve its purpose. Like the nearby Autopia, it gave little ones a chance to be drivers, and it provided a more bucolic experience amid the busy theme park.

But by the 1990s, it was clearly on the way out. In 1991, Disneyland underwent a brief fever dream, redecorating a number of rides to promote Disney Channel shows like “TaleSpin,” “Adventures of the Gummi Bears” and “Chip ’n Dale Rescue Rangers.” The “Gummi Bears” makeover of the boat cruise was a sad one. Underneath the gold letters of the MOTOR BOAT CRUISE sign, a cheap sign was added that tacked on the phrase “To Gummi Glen.” Behind it, a dreary cartoon castle was a harbinger of the low-rent experience to come.

The two-dimensional characters were dotted throughout the landscaping, seemingly made of plywood. For the kids more focused on cranking the steering wheel back and forth, they probably didn’t even notice them.

The overlay was a dud, and two years later, the Motor Boat Cruise closed for good to reassign cast members to the newly opened Mickey’s Toontown. One of Disneyland’s longest-tenured rides had faded into obscurity.

For a time, the boat dock sat empty, and then it was briefly a smoking area in the 2000s. When Edelweiss Snacks was built, it was finally converted into the serene seating spot that guests recognize today. Even on busy park days, it’s a lovely reprieve, a place to sit and wait for your family to ride the Matterhorn, eat a quick snack or just enjoy the view. And the next time you’re there, you can imagine the way it was once: boats drifting by, the Skyway soaring overhead, and Autopia cars clanking and motoring past it all.