Overall, the reviews I've read on this site have been pretty accurate of the resort. My wife and I just got back from Galley Bay (Oct. 21-28) on our honeymoon and I'd like to offer up our detailed review, as well as some advice.

The positives:

The location is outstanding and the beach is beautiful. Overall the water is clear and a really pretty color (light aqua). The sand is silky soft to walk on. In addition, the resort is actually isolated off on its own, away from the crowded resorts you'll find on Dickenson Bay (where Sandals and others are located). In seven days there, we only ran into maybe two vendors trying to sell things. Not a big deal, and they only came around on the weekends. Ignore them and they will leave you alone and respect your privacy. Also, the pool is great. It's very nice and it's great to take a dive in at the end of the day after swimming in the salty and sandy ocean. The bars are really nice too, utilize them often!

We stayed in the Deluxe Beachfront room (second from the top) and were in an upstairs room. The room was very nice with a spacious walk in closet, very nice, large bathroom with dual sinks, and a nice size room for sleeping with a coffee table lounging area. There were two balconies--one in front and one in back which were very spacious as well. The rooms were nice--no doubt---not real luxurious, but a perfect tropical setting.

The staff in our opinion was the most impressive feature of the resort.
Everyone from the groundskeepers, to the wait staff, to the housekeeping crew were extremely friendly and helpful. The staff takes the time to get to know you and your tastes. A perfect example was when my wife was asking the bartenders the first couple of days on the trip for a sauvignon blanc wine which they were all out of (in fact they didn't even carry a house sauvignon blanc anymore)---their standard white wine was a chardonnay. We showed up at the gougin restaurant for a nice romantic dinner on the third night and the waitress brought out a bottle of wine in a bucket and put it on the table and said "The wine you requested". We said we hadn't ordered any wine yet, she must have had the wrong table. She said "The sauvignon blanc? You've been asking for it the last 3 days, we brought it in for you. We've been noticing your request." This is impeccable service in my mind. On top of that, the next day at lunch, Mike Matthews, the Maitre' D, asked us if we enjoyed the wine (he wasn't even at the dinner the night before!), and claimed that they had enough sauvignon blanc on hand to accomdate us for the rest of our vacation. (And no, we were not charged anything on our final bill). Incredible! In addition, on our last day when we checked out at 5 am for a 7am flight, we couldn't make it to breakfast (starts at 7am), but the crew made a takeout grab bag of fruit, a snack bar, and a bottle of water to send us on our way! What thoughtfulness!

As far as the food, overall it was excellent! There is plenty to choose from and even if you are a bit of a picky eater like me, you can find something to eat at every meal and almost every meal was top notch. The only menu that changes is the Sea Grape's dinner menu. The breakfast and lunch menu's as well as the Gougin restaurant's dinner menu are all fixed. Thurs. night is BBQ night--which is pretty good I might add.
Don't miss it. You do have to make reservations for the Gougin, and I highly recommend eating dinner there at least 2 nights. The food is excellent and the ambience is much more intimate and romantic and well worth the reservation required. If you're on you're honeymoon, definitely make it a point to eat there.

The negatives:

There were a few negatives that you should be aware of. First off, we had some issues with bugs in our room. Mainly little cockroaches--we caught about 4 in our room scurrying around at various times---one was crawling on our bed when we came home. This is a huge turnoff for me, especially if I'm paying several $$$ hundred dollars a night for a room. I realize it's the tropics and there are insects and other creatures you may run into, but the last thing I want on my honeymoon is to not be able to sleep for fear of a creepy bug crawling around on me in my sleep. When we showed up in the room, there was a can of bug spray in the closet---should have known then we might have a problem.
If you drink enough booze and then go to bed, you won't think about the potential for bugs in the room. However, this got old about day 3. So day 3, I sprayed the cracks around the doors and windows and basically drained the whole can of bug spray to try and perform my own preventive "pest control", just like the guys that come to our house in the US and spray the problem areas. I thought it worked, but I found two more roaches in the bathroom twice even after my own treatment. I honestly couldn't figure out where they were coming from since the doors and windows are sealed pretty tight and I had no clue how these bugs (not that tiny), were getting in. Finally I decided they must have been coming in through the shower drain in the bathroom. So from then on, I covered the shower drain with a towel at all times when I wasn't showering, and also pulled the drain up in both sinks to ensure nothing could get in through the drain pipes. After that, I never saw another roach or bug in the room again for the remaining 4 days of the trip. It was really odd we had bugs given we were on a top floor. Anyway, that's my advice if you have a bug problem--spray the possible entry points and cover the drain holes in the bathroom.

The second thing that is annoying, is that except for the top of the line rooms (the Premium Beachfront Suites), none of the rooms at Galley Bay have any windows. They all have screens on the windows with wooden shutters that you can shut. All rooms have an A/C unit, but it is terribly inefficient to cool the room (at least ours because it was pretty large), when you have cold air leaking out of the small gaps in the shutters. At night, you better turn your A/C unit on a good two hours before you go to bed if you want some relief from the heat and humidity. The tempature cools off naturally at night, but the humidity is what makes it uncomfortable to sleep in without A/C. You have to figure that they lose a lot of money in electricity costs with those A/C units cranking away all night (and day sometimes). Also, having windows in the rooms would cut down on the noise at night when you try to sleep that everyone on this site talks about (the ocean waves crashing and the frogs/crickets).

A minor gripe--the beach is beautiful, but really the best part of the beach is the right half (if you are looking at the ocean). The south part of the beach is very rocky and hard to swim in. In fact, if the waves are rough, it can be dangerous. It seems odd to me that the the two nicest styles of rooms were built on the half of the beach where the rockiest parts are--so be prepared to hike a little ways to get to the swimmable area with the soft sand if you're staying in the Deluxe or Premium suites (but hey--it's an excuse to pass by the bar!).

Another minor gripe - The bird lagoon needs to go. You'll see a few birds in the lagoon but nothing spectacular. Plus the lagoon is a mirky brown, looks like some swamp that you would find in Lousiana that should be filled with crocodiles. Not to mention that this stagnant lagoon is a sure breeding ground for mosquitoes and other insects.

Other notes from our trip:

Rent a car and drive the island! This was a blast and Galley Bay will hook you up with ATS rental services. We saw Shirley Heights (a must see), St. John's, Betty's Hope, and many other sites. If you get going by 9am, you can tour the entire island in a day if you are efficient.

Other resorts---Unless you want a crowded mass of people, stay away from any resort on Dickensen Bay. This includes the touted Sandals.
Just looked like a mess of vendors and people all over the beach. Jumby Bay, if you can afford it, looks spectacular (we almost went there). We actually toured Blue Waters resort while we there and were quite impressed. This looks like a nice resort as well--not as quaint as Galley Bay, but nice rooms (windows!), nice bars and restaurants, and a pretty nice beach.

St. John's shopping area by the cruise ship docks is good as well.
Check it out if you are into the shopping scene.

The Grand Princess casino is the nicest if you want gambling. It was dead when we were there (must be the slow season effect). STAY AWAY from the progressive lotto game--we got ripped off big time! It's the one where you draw lotto balls out. This is a total scam!

We did the Wadadli Cats snorkeling trip to Bird Island. This was a lot of fun and the staff was excellent on the boat.

Things we didn't do but looked like fun: Jolly Roger and a trip to Montserrat where the active volcano is.