I was really excited to play Ultima 7 from here, but at the moment it's not playable in the standard DOSBox that the GogGalaxy player starts it in. Very jumpy, words fly by super fast and when I walk i take 2 super fast steps then stutter over and over--giving me a headache just trying to watch me travel half the screen (which is taking forever due to the stuttering).

I saw something about Exult. Will this solve everything? Or are my problems related to something else?

Thank you! Again, really looking forward to this! I used to sit on my dad's lap and watch him play this back when I was a little kid. This and the Hero's Quest / King's Quest series were our Go To's for Father/Son time . :D.

It sounds like the game is running way too fast (due to floating text disappearing fast) but at the same time really slow due to its jumpiness? You can slow down the game by pressing CTRL+F11 in DosBox (CTRL+F12 speeds it up).
Keep in mind that the screen won't be scrolling smoothly, pixel by pixel, but rather tile by tile. That's the game.

If all else fails, I'd try Exult; it comes with a lot of quality of life improvements.